After months of searching and more than 18 months of on-again, off-again discussions, the Dearborn automaker on Thursday hired the general manager of Lexus North America, Jim Farley, to serve as group vice president of marketing and communications. The former head of marketing for the Toyota brand, Farley, 45, was one of the fastest-rising stars at Toyota Motor Corp. on either side of the Pacific.
To analysts, he is the paradigm-shattering whiz kid who launched Toyota's youth-oriented Scion brand with a guerilla marketing campaign that focused on art galleries, rock concerts and street corners. To dealers, he is a straight-shooter who listens to the guys in the trenches. And to Ford CEO Alan Mulally, he is just the man to lead one of the most radical marketing makeovers in the automaker's history.
Farley will face unfamiliar challenges at Ford, which lacks Toyota's mammoth marketing budget and has been hemorrhaging market share to Toyota and other foreign rivals for a decade. If he succeeds in convincing consumers to give the Blue Oval a second chance, Farley could emerge as a strong candidate to succeed Mulally.
At Toyota, Farley was known for his customer-focused marketing strategy. He saw his job as finding what consumers want and then convincing Toyota's product development team to give it to them. That is a radical departure from Detroit's traditional approach of building cars and trucks and then trying to convince consumers to buy them.
“I want him to really help me take the marketing capability and that functional expertise to a new level of performance inside Ford, to bring the voice of the customer in — their wants, their needs, what they value — and to use that to help us design cars and trucks they value,” Mulally told The Detroit News Thursday, noting that Ford has never had a corporate head of marketing.
“This is a big deal, because it means that marketing — the product, the place, the promotion, the price — is a really important part of the business and they're at the table. They're part of the team.”
Mulally wants Farley to work closely with Ford's global product development czar, Derrick Kuzak, to ensure the company's worldwide design and engineering resources are marshaled to meet the needs of Ford's customers.
Farley has no qualms about changing teams.
“Ford Motor Co. is really a very special company,” he told The News. “There are similarities between Ford and Toyota in terms of the families involved. There is a long-term focus and a protection of the company's image and value when there's something greater than just an economic entity.”
Farley has strong family ties to the Detroit area.
His mother was raised here and his sister is an orthopedic surgeon at University Hospital in Ann Arbor. Farley spent summers at a family home in northern Michigan.
His grandfather Emmet Tracy was an early Ford employee. After two decades at Ford, he left to open a Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Grosse Pointe Farms. In 1944, he founded the Alma Piston Co. to supply parts to Ford. The company, now known as Alma Products, is still a Ford supplier, and Farley worked there during summer breaks when he was in school.
Farley's first car was a 1966 Ford Mustang that he bought in Michigan when he was 15, restored and drove to California. He still has it, along with a 1964 Shelby Cobra and a 1934 flathead Ford hotrod.
“Jim is a car guy, and that means a lot to me as a dealer,” said Kent Ritchey, a longtime Toyota dealer who recently sold his franchise and bought a Ford dealership in Memphis, Tenn.
“It's a coup for Ford Motor Co. I've seen him roll up his sleeves and get dirt under his fingernails. I think my investment just became worth a lot more money.”
Analysts agree that Farley could be a game-changer at Ford, but they say he is also going to face some much tougher challenges than he ever had to at Toyota.
“He's a shooting star in Toyota's very solid executive ranks,” said George Peterson, president of AutoPacific in Los Angeles. “But I think he's going to find Toyota's budgets are dramatically different than Ford's.”
Not only does Ford have less to spend on advertising, but also it has to spend it on many more models.
Ford's recent history has been one of strong product launches that are quickly left to fend for themselves in the marketplace as the automaker turns its limited marketing resources to newer models.
Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore., said the decision to hire Farley is a sign those days may be coming to an end.
“He's very focused on customer marketing and opposed to product marketing,” he said. “That's a very different attitude. It's going to be interesting to see if it flies at Ford.”
It is also going to be interesting to see how high Farley flies. Sources familiar with the situation say Mulally was looking for someone with the makings of a future CEO when he tapped Farley.
“He's a pretty complete package at a very young age,” said Peterson, adding that Farley had experience with everything from sales and marketing to product development and manufacturing during his 17-year career at Toyota. “He has the approach and the presence. He could do it with a little bit of maturing.”
