Here's what Reuters said about Ford's September US performance, compared to what Ford's PR release actually said:
Oops.
Much more important, the saddest story almost never told by Old Media continues to play out.
The American Family Association began a boycott of Ford in March of 2006 over what it considers to be the company's overt pro-homosexual activism and support of other politically-correct causes.
Is the boycott having an effect? Here is Ford's sales performance in the US since then (most of the numbers are from an AFA spreadsheet; the numbers conform to my recall of what the company has reported during the period involved:
The company's sales performance has been consistently at least 10% worse than its major rivals during the period of the boycott. Now it's getting worse (see the August comparison here about 2/3 of the way through the link; Ford trailed the average of the rest of the pack by 16%). Could that be because ever more people (750,000 and counting) are participating in the boycott? In previous posts, I have estimated that at least 10 million to 15 million are actually participating in the boycott by the time you add up AFA's 3.2 million members, their family and extended-family members, influenced friends and relatives, and the impact of other participating organizations.
I personally wish Don Wildmon's crowd hadn't declared the boycott, because too many good people are getting hurt. But the fact is he did, and Ford looks like it would rather go under than acknowledge its probable impact. If this were still Henry Ford's private empire, you could perhaps defend the company's apparent willingness to commit corporate suicide (I still wouldn't, because you have employees, their families, suppliers, and the communities to consider). But Ford is a publicly owned company, and its duty is try to get its shareholders the best possible return on their investment within the law. They're not doing that, while traditional media refuse to explore the boycott's likely growing impact.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com and The Cleveland Plain Dealer's "Wide Open" Blog.
—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters
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Capitalism
October 2, 2007 - 15:33 ET by Army Bratat its best. Don't alienate your customer base. I've never been to business school, but I'm pretty sure they tell ya that at some point whilst teaching a person how to do business.Happy Trails...
true effectiveness of the boycott? What's the "hit" rate?
October 2, 2007 - 16:14 ET by S PIn general the domestic automakers are not doing well at all right now. I think Ford has other problems that could easily result in numbers like these, such as the poor management and a lot of product missteps. They renamed the Five Hundred the Taurus for the love of god, and due to a failed engine program they had to launch the original Five Hundred with a puny little engine. And then they have a lot of great products overseas that strangely aren't sold here for whatever reason. Ever see a European or Asian market Ford Focus? It's HOT! Why do we get the watered down bland version here?
Anyways, for this boycott of 750,000 people though, how many of these 750k would have actually bought a Ford in the first place in the timeframe that these numbers are being looked at. In other words, what is the "real" impact of the boycott? Any data on this? For every 10 people participating in the boycott, there might only have been 2 or 3 that would have been purchasing a vehicle in this time frame anyways, and of those 2 or 3, lets say that only 1 of them would have bought a Ford in the first place, but decided not to. So out of these 10, the net impact for this time period would have only been 1. This may even be exaggerated. The impact could be far less than that.
I guess this is very difficult to quantify, but of all of Ford's problem this certainly isn't helping to say the least.
10 million
October 2, 2007 - 17:40 ET by Tom BlumerAs my post indicates, it's very reasonable to think that 10-15 million people aren't buying Fords. How many would have otherwise in a year's time? If the answer is a quarter million (1.6% - 2.5% of those participating in the boycott), that's a whole month or more of sales.
Also, the boycotters are more likely to be families who buy higher-sticker, higher-margin items like SUVs, pickups, etc.
I estimate that if Ford had sold 30,000 - 50,000 more vehicles in the US in the second quarter (depending on mix), it would have broken even instead of losing $279 million in its North American operations.
It's hard not to think that the boycott is making a difference.
Also, this month GM was up 0.3%, Toyota down 4%, Honda up 9%. Ford is in relative free-fall.
Wasn't the Taurus the #1 car
October 2, 2007 - 17:45 ET by Chris NormanWasn't the Taurus the #1 car for fleet sales before they dropped it a couple years ago?
The results
October 2, 2007 - 20:04 ET by jarednt1The results are low for a reason not because of some boycott. The results are low because Ford has cut out a chunk of Fleet Sales.
The a good chunk of the decline was in Fleet Sales which was done on purpose.
Ahh, jarednt1, Ford cut fleet sales on purpose?
October 2, 2007 - 20:13 ET by Dave RWhy would a major automaker cut out fleet sales on purpose?
When I'm president, privatization is off the table because it's not the answer to anything.-Hillary Rodham, September 3, 2007 AARP Legislative Conference.
Because there is not a great
October 2, 2007 - 20:18 ET by jarednt1Because there is not a great deal of money in fleet sales, and fleet sales were hurting there image.
AKA: Taraus
Fleet
October 2, 2007 - 21:55 ET by Tom BlumerOne of the many articles about all of this says that Ford's sales were down 15% even after the fleet effect. If you're going to explain away the boycott, that one's not going to cut it.