Industry Professionals: Let's Grade Ford.

[Wasatch]

In college for my final business management project I did a full internal and external analysis on Ford and the automotive industry. With this project we had to do the analysis and then compare them to find out what are the best decisions Ford should be making to put their company in a better position moving forward. This was about 5 years ago. Some of the points I emphasized were Ford needed to start offering online presales of vehicles and innovate better smart technology within their cars. We had a lot of other points made but these 2 are what I see most in the Bronco launch and hopefully Ford continues to do in the future. The presale is a huge thing they can continue doing for all cars as it builds hype, and it's a good way to start offering discounts.

Agree with the general analysis you provide including pre-sale. However, this Bronco launch reminds me of the ill conceived "Rocks and Trees" effort that Infiniti used when they had no vehicles on the ground and the Q45 (the first Infiniti) was months away. Rocks and Trees was initiated to combat the Lexus brand launch which was way ahead. The only thing Rocks and Trees did was to confuse and aggravate potential customers. Look familiar? Of interest is that the Rocks and Trees effort was devised by former FoMoCo folks.

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[jbf19]

Great thread guys. Really appreciate the industry pro's analysis. The towing capacity and non-removable back seats are really head scratchers (especially the latter). Wish they could course correct now but I'm sure they can't. Really is frustrating for those who don't want to wait any longer to get a Bronco (they've made us wait so long as it is). Starting to seem like the "smart" thing to do is to wait a year or two and let them fix their obvious mistakes. Anyway, keep 'em coming.

 

[vrewald14]

I’m sorry I’m not really grasping what the “rocks and trees” strategy was? Can you describe it with a little more background? I’m interested now to know what it was ?

Agree with the general analysis you provide including pre-sale. However, this Bronco launch reminds me of the ill conceived "Rocks and Trees" effort that Infiniti used when they had no vehicles on the ground and the Q45 (the first Infiniti) was months away. Rocks and Trees was initiated to combat the Lexus brand launch which was way ahead. The only thing Rocks and Trees did was to confuse and aggravate potential customers. Look familiar? Of interest is that the Rocks and Trees effort was devised by former FoMoCo folks.

 

[Carolina Jim]

you can't say it any better than this guy:

 

[TXBronco]

Just wanted to say, this thread is why I LOVE this site..
That and how funny you guys can be.
Idk what happened to @Escape_Artist, but that guy had me laughing everyday leading up to the reveal. Seriously, meme ninja.
Anyway, I don't have time to do a Full Monty grade(and have no expertise to do so) but I might sometime if I get real bored one day in the next year or two and we have full hindsight.
Preliminary, "I have no business grading" grade: B-
( I started typing out reasons why, then remembered OP requested technical analysis, and to leave personal opinions out, lol I was almost one of THOSE guys?)

 

[Sough]

Agree with the general analysis you provide including pre-sale. However, this Bronco launch reminds me of the ill conceived "Rocks and Trees" effort that Infiniti used when they had no vehicles on the ground and the Q45 (the first Infiniti) was months away. Rocks and Trees was initiated to combat the Lexus brand launch which was way ahead. The only thing Rocks and Trees did was to confuse and aggravate potential customers. Look familiar? Of interest is that the Rocks and Trees effort was devised by former FoMoCo folks.

Yea. There’s definitely things to work out with it. But hopefully they can continue to work on this since I think online sales is the best way to sell cars. You’ll always need car lots for people who need to buy a car in a pinch. However, the way Tesla sells is how it should be. The price you see is the price you get. Pick out exactly what you want. Order it now, get it this date, and start making your payments. Takes a lot of the bs out of buying cars. The thing we’re seeing with the Bronco though is that no one is 100% sure when they will get theirs. I’m hopefully they can gather some data from this launch to help make ones in the future better though.

 

[Wasatch]

Agree with the general analysis you provide including pre-sale. However, this Bronco launch reminds me of the ill conceived "Rocks and Trees" effort that Infiniti used when they had no vehicles on the ground and the Q45 (the first Infiniti) was months away. Rocks and Trees was initiated to combat the Lexus brand launch which was way ahead. The only thing Rocks and Trees did was to confuse and aggravate potential customers. Look familiar? Of interest is that the Rocks and Trees effort was devised by former FoMoCo folks.

If you Google Infiniti Rocks and Trees Campaign you will find content. Essentially, the Infiniti brand wasn't ready for launch but it was made to appear that it had cars available for sale. Lexus was just launching. This gives away my age, but this campaign was a flop and ticked many customers off. The strategy was to create "mystery" and "desire". Maybe if it included a presale/reservation (aka Bronco) it could have been successful.

 

[Escape_Artist]

Just wanted to say, this thread is why I LOVE this site..
That and how funny you guys can be.
Idk what happened to @Escape_Artist, but that guy had me laughing everyday leading up to the reveal. Seriously, meme ninja.
Anyway, I don't have time to do a Full Monty grade(and have no expertise to do so) but I might sometime if I get real bored one day in the next year or two and we have full hindsight.
Preliminary, "I have no business grading" grade: B-
( I started typing out reasons why, then remembered OP requested technical analysis, and to leave personal opinions out, lol I was almost one of THOSE guys?)

I’m still here(mostly). Just been busy with life and the explosion of members made it much harder to keep up ?

 

[huey]

With respect to your product design and approach grade (B+), what would it have taken for you to have given a higher score? Mostly the towing rating or other things as well?

rewald14
well my take hit on towing and rear seats, something that was a chunk of the B+ grade not going higher. I am also a bit of a cynic so the i'm not sure I could give an A+ just on pictures and pre-release info. to be fair the grade could go up or down once I actually see/feel/drive one, hopefully it goes up!

 

[vrewald14]

I intend to update my grades as we learn new information and as Ford reacts / makes changes / improvements. See what was added to post #1:

Engineering B+

EDIT: 8/10 - I'm bumping this score up to a B+ due to the clear demonstration of real-world testing in extreme environments. They are clearly testing the foreseen customer use cases and being relentless about "thrashing" things to find weak points. Just about the only reason at this point not to go to an "A" is because of not knowing extended life durability / reliability and wet condition performance. What will happen when they pack that front end full of mud then try to drive it 200 miles home...

Public Relations C

EDIT:8/10 - I'm bumping this score to a C. Ford has taken a very interesting approach in boosting customer confidence in the overall product. They have embraced the idea of social media documentation and promotion of actual product performance in unfiltered environments. All of the recent videos from Rubicon and Moab are a clear indication they are unafraid to bash this thing in front of people to prove it does the job and keeps going. This is not easy for a large OEM to accept - and it is VERY risky. They are potentially revealing failure points of a product that is about to go into production. VERY good for boosting customer confidence in overall product performance.

I think it will be difficult to improve their score above "C", due to all the other option / communication issues I still feel are a problem, but hey maybe they will improve upon that in the coming months!

 

[Ft. Worth Rob]

rewald14
well my take hit on towing and rear seats, something that was a chunk of the B+ grade not going higher. I am also a bit of a cynic so the i'm not sure I could give an A+ just on pictures and pre-release info. to be fair the grade could go up or down once I actually see/feel/drive one, hopefully it goes up!

I concur with the overall grades you guys have given. Yeah, a quick release rear seat would’ve been a nice feature in the two door. Years ago I loved that feature in my wife’s PT Cruiser and left the rear seat out of my old ‘75 Bronco. The PT had a flat floor with the seats removed, which was functional. Depending on how the floor is set up in the new one I may just unbolt them and leave them in the garage.

 

[HeritageRider]

Agree with the general analysis you provide including pre-sale. However, this Bronco launch reminds me of the ill conceived "Rocks and Trees" effort that Infiniti used when they had no vehicles on the ground and the Q45 (the first Infiniti) was months away. Rocks and Trees was initiated to combat the Lexus brand launch which was way ahead. The only thing Rocks and Trees did was to confuse and aggravate potential customers. Look familiar? Of interest is that the Rocks and Trees effort was devised by former FoMoCo folks.

I remember that debacle... I also remember seeing an advertising exec critiquing it, and saying "Flocks of geese? Flocks of geese?!? Show us the damned car!"

 

[bbqbronco]

I thought it would be interesting (and valuable) for professionals in industry to have a thought provoking thread discussing all aspects of the new Bronco release from the perspective of industry professionals – NOT an average customer. NO dumb questions about “can I get this option with that option” or general bashing allowed here. Maybe we'll learn something here that will carry over into our work lives...
Reminder: NO STUIPID OPTION / RECOMMENDATION QUESTIONS HERE – go find another thread for that.

How come I can't get cyber orange on big bend tho? Can I has two bottle openers?

I wear computer glasses sometimes so that pretty much qualifies me as a part time engineer. My take is Ford has knocked it out of the park with the bronco and their communication needs some work. Total score: A

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