To be honest, I read the interview you had with Lisa, and from everything I can gather - she doesn't know what she is doing, or talking about.
I do not expect her to be an Engineer, but Lisa needs to be a car person, or at least be able to fake it, and she comes off as a person who would buy a car out of a vending machine if she could. She knows nothing more than a small collection of facts that some stupid phrase on a website is based off of.
These are a few examples of her poor performance as the ST brand manager as I see it:
The general public has no idea about this car (-1)
The Facebook ST site sucks (-1)
The Ford ST site sucks (-1)
Their is almost NO media on the car from Ford (-1)
The ST simulator (steering) sucks (-1)
And, as before, she knows nothing about the car (-5)!!!!!
Now, this is all a subjective opinion from a prospective consumer, but it is her job to influence the opinions of prospective consumers. Therefor, she has failed to do her job adequately in, at least, my case.
We are most likely best to agree to disagree here Craig. Lets start this discussion from the stand point that I might know a lot about marketing and advertising. I am not sure of your age group/demographic, but this car is trying to hit a very specific market segment.
I think in today's world, the traditional media (Radio. newspapers, mailers, TV) is not the most effective way to get this product out there. And especially in my age group, where we spend a lot of our time playing video games, and surfing the internet. When say say the general public doesn't know about the car. That might be true, but why would Ford waste their money and resources marketing to someone who won't buy this car? I believe their marketing efforts have been a mix between traditional marketing and the internet. Ford is also using viral marketing. This website works off of that strategy. So Ford ST Nation is helping them promote this car.
I want to point out that the car is at almost every major auto show. Also, if you own Forza 4 you can drive the Focus ST. :thumb: That was released 4 months ago. I think there have been plenty attempts to market the Focus ST via non-traditional advertising.
The Ford ST FaceBook page is perfect. For a long time, there was the Ford Focus facebook page, which is not specific to the ST brand. She (Ford) is able to directly communicate to the consumer via that page. Which is so great, because 10 years ago, even 5 years ago you would not of had that kind of interaction with. And the fact that is actually responds to each and everyone is very cool. She is very receptive to my feedback, and requests.
The Ford ST site is far better than just pictures that they had for over a year on the Focus site. It is meant to be a hype mechanism right now, but you can spin the colors and car in 360 degrees, request information, and look at some of the features the car has to offer. This is in line with every other car they have not launched yet. The Ford ST site lacks information because they are not ready to release that information.
When you say there is almost no media on the car? Take a look at my website. This place is filled with TONS of pictures and videos for you to enjoy.
The simulator steering is a minor detail that is not important to how or what his car is going to be. I will agree I did not like the steering input the simulator had, but I think Ford is at the mercy of Sim-zilla company who sets that up for the auto shows.
I understand your pessimism, but I think its not 100% fair or correct.
I think she knows plenty about the car, but NDAs prevent her from talking about it until the NDA is lifted. It's just like media embargos, due to competition you have to wait as long as possible from revealing pricing/equipment information so the car has a better chance being "top dog" for as long as possible.
The ST site/facebook page is mostly just to increase awareness.
:thumb:
I see your point that she is in a hush state about the car, but if we asked her how she thinks the TQ distribution curve over the RPM band will help fuel economy in a performance vehicle, she would look at us with a mile long blank stare. Or worse, she would start throwing the hype words into random sentences.
Her comment about the inlays may come to fruition, but for someone who owns a '12 Titanium, I highly doubt it and I can near guarantee she threw out the word aluminum because she knows it markets well.
I know she isn't one of the bone-head models that prances around a new car attracting customers with looks, and I am almost certain that she knows the marketing process of a product very well and has already developed a solid plan to push the ST in multiple markets and with a broad-spectrum approach. However, she is not knowledgeable enough about the car to be doing any sort of major content distribution (i.e interviews, publications, media) herself. She needs to either bone-up on cars, and more specifically the ST, or try and beg an engineer to help her out more directly with her job.
She is not a engineer man. She is not a mechanic. I would not expect her to know about those kinds of things. I want her to know what the brand of turbo is. What kind of stopping power the car has. Is the leather made of xx.
Another thing you have to remember, she is also at the mercy of her boss or project manger of the Focus ST. I believe Lisa knows everything about the car, but cannot tell anyone about it.
Everything is will be fine once you get a price, and a test drive.
None of this will matter when that happens.
The wait is killing us all.
