If the premise of Ford’s new Bold Moves documentary, which promises to rip the bullshit out of the company, holds true, the company may actually live up to the promise of its new “Bold Moves” ad campaign. The online documentary series promises an unfettered look inside the company and how it plans to return to profitability by 2008. The first episode of the series recounts Ford’s glory days but very quickly admits its tenuous position in the face of superior foreign automotive companies which continue to take more and more market share. With the documentary, Ford promises to tell the honest story of how it will engineer its own comeback.
The site which hosts the documentary includes newsfeeds from Yahoo, both good and bad as well as feature articles and background on Ford executives involved in the process. The site is also set up blog-style and accepts comments.
While the move is bold, so to speak, there’s just something about it that feels forced. It’s both humble and not humble at the same time. On one hand, it’s like that sales rep we all know who can’t keep his mouth shut about his accomplishments. On the other, it’s like a father who’s let down his daughter over and over again and finally realizes it’s time to atone for years of neglect with a shower of good will. It’s wonderful to see a company open up like this and cast aside the old ways of communication but none of ir would be necessary if the company had remained competitive in the first place. We don’t hear Nissan and Toyota offering up mea culpas and promises of exciting, bold, new moves.
All in all, though, it does, in many ways, offer a pay off to the Bold Moves promise which wasn’t at first evident when the campaign launched.
