Mulally: Five Hundred should have been Taurus

[igor]

http://news.windingroad.com/marketin...e-been-taurus/

Igor

[Ming]

Of course, the 2006 Taurus was nothing like vehicle the company launched twenty years ago, but that still doesn’t change the fact that name had tremendous value. More than a few bright marketing executives have preached the value in saving damaged brand names, rather than starting over again.

OK, I'm officially a Mullaly fan now. The guy is making the kind of sense that we were back when the Five-Hundred and its name-value-less stablemates were introduced.

Of course I'm not sure whether it should have been the Five-Hundred or the Fusion to get the Taurus nameplate - either would have worked. The point is, build up name recognition for your cars, or have people default to Camry and Accord.

As I've said in the past, Ford can't afford to rely on this idea that customers are going to wander in to a Ford dealership and bump into a Five-Hundred and want to buy it. I haven't seen jack for commercials for the Five-Hundred for several months at least, so how are people supposed to know about it? At least the tarnished Taurus nameplate could be polished up and still have some recognition.

And people might actually get excited about an ALL NEW Taurus, where the "all-new" actually means something.

[dufus22]

The five Hundred makes the most sense as a Taurus. It looks like one to me. So, I think Ford should just call the Facelifted 500, the Taurus, and be done with it. It make actually help sells.

[geozinger]

Originally Posted by Ming

Of course I'm not sure whether it should have been the Five-Hundred or the Fusion to get the Taurus nameplate - either would have worked. The point is, build up name recognition for your cars, or have people default to Camry and Accord.

The exception to this rule is if your previous car is/was good. The name Cavalier has a reputation that will probably never be lived down. Some names are so damaged, there's no return. It's just as well that the replacement car was named the Cobalt.

Apparently someone in Ford marketing thought the same thing about the Taurus?

[awalbert88]

In another thread, I had said that changing the name of the Five Hundred would be a bad decision. However, if they change it to Taurus, I'm totally for it. The marketing potential is tremendous there. So long as they do a facelift and get the 3.5 in there before the name change, there is a real chance that the new Taurus would do very well.

The Five Hundred is a good sedan, and a lot more competitive than most people give it credit for. With the right name and advertising for it, it could do very well in the market.

[igor]

Originally Posted by dufus22

The five Hundred makes the most sense as a Taurus. It looks like one to me. So, I think Ford should just call the Facelifted 500, the Taurus, and be done with it. It make actually help sells.

I thought about it, but feel it would make sense to kill the FH name after THIS GENERATION, and call the newxt one the "rebirth of Taurus" ..

Igor

[Ming]

Originally Posted by geozinger

The exception to this rule is if your previous car is/was good. The name Cavalier has a reputation that will probably never be lived down. Some names are so damaged, there's no return. It's just as well that the replacement car was named the Cobalt.

Apparently someone in Ford marketing thought the same thing about the Taurus?

True, and part of that problem is that Honda and Toyota have, for the most part, never ignored the Camry and Accord the way GM and Ford often go for hyped-up jazzy debuts and then let the cars sink into obscurity and rental-fleet obsolesence.

But the Taurus was once king, and I think it could benefit from a re-introduction where it is made clear that its an all-new car.

The Cavalier was also the entry level Chevy car for a while, and even Toyota has gotten rid of its share of entry level car nameplates, like Tercel and Paseo.

[nadepalma]

Ford’s own marketing chief, Barry Engle, is quoted in the Businessweek piece as saying “I don’t know why we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a name over 20 years and then walk away from it.”

Good post Igor.

This above was a good question -- the only thing that I can think of is if a nameplate is "damaged" by the parent company. Take for example the Cavalier -- it wasn't a horrible car, but GM let it get old and was ripe for replacement. By the time the new car came about, it was arguably damaged beyond saving.

[igor]

I have their slogan already:

"The Bull is Back !! Check out the new 2010 Ford Taurus at your local Ford dealer"



Igor

[jbartley]

duh!

this man is a genius! who the heck has been running for for the past 5 years??

[PeterPuck]

Volkswagen is doing this with the Golf. The Rabbit had a tarnished image as well, but also a huge following.

Damaged nameplates can be repaired with some hard work and confidence on the part of the manufacturer and marketers.

[desmo9]

Mulally, by his own admission, isn't a car guy. And if he thinks naming the 500 a Taurus would have made much difference, he's demonstrating it. First, Taurus name began to weaken over time, after the silly-looking Telnack redesign in '96. Second, they split the Taurus into a larger sedan (500) and a smaller one (Fusion). Keeping the name Taurus on the larger one might have undermined what Fusion's all about. And Fusion is probably closer to the direct Taurus replacement.

Lastly, and mostly, the name 500 is not killing the car ... the car is killing itself. It's a boring, yesterday design. If that 500 looked more like the Interceptor concept and less like a half-baked 1997 Audi A6, we'd not be having this discussion. The only issue then would be, 500 sounds (and looks) alot like 300.

Did "300" hurt Chrysler when the car was right? Nope. But if the 300 looked and sold like crap, people would have said, "should have named it Imperial" or some such nonsense.

If the issue is in using alphanumerics instead of names, then Lincoln's the culprit at this point. The whole MK-X thing is dumb.

[desmo9]

Originally Posted by PeterPuck

Volkswagen is doing this with the Golf. The Rabbit had a tarnished image as well, but also a huge following.

Damaged nameplates can be repaired with some hard work and confidence on the part of the manufacturer and marketers.

A 20+ year hiatus has a way of allowing people to forget the bad experiences they may have had with the car, and instead latch on to fond, nostalgic memories of the era.

[GM-Joe]

I am glad that I am not the only person who knows this! It is marketing suicide to change the name of a product. It confuses to many consumers, personally, the next 500 I would call the Taurus, then use the Fairlane name of an up and coming minivan/cuv replacement.

[poncho1982]

Smartest thing I have heard from the Ford camp in years.

Taurus was a great car, even I can admit that. Got a bit ugly with the whole "I wanna be a big Neon" look, but they corrected that towards the end.

This guy sounds pretty smart. Here's hoping the redesigned 500 is renamed.