Should the Taurus Have Stayed Dead?
Ford Motor will announce that it’s renaming the Ford Five Hundred sedan at this week’s Chicago Auto Show. As first reported in BusinessWeek.com’s Auto Blog on Jan. 4, the 2008 model will be renamed the Taurus.
Ford (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/) stopped production on the original Ford Taurus last November. The sedan, at one time the best-selling car in the U.S., had become primarily a rental car for Ford by the end of its production run. The auto maker had two plants dedicated to making the Taurus, giving it far more supply—more than 400,000 cars annually—than the retail market demanded. In the last year, Ford consolidated assembly to one plant before closing production all together a few months ago.
Ford CEO Alan Mulally last December told BusinessWeek that he believed abandoning the Taurus name, which had built up so much recognition and awareness in the marketplace “was an incredible waste of an investment.”
What to call its cars has been a vexing problem for Ford, as well as for General Motors (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/) and DaimlerChrysler’s (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/) Chrysler division. All three companies have worked hard the last few years to improve vehicle designs and close the quality gap with Toyota (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/) and Honda (http://www.businessweek.com/ticker/).
In Ford’s case, it sold the Lincoln Zephyr sedan for a year, and then decided to rename it MKZ on the belief that its American luxury brand should have alpha-numeric names along the lines of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Acura, Lexus, and more recently, Cadillac. In GM’s case, some executives have expressed marketer’s remorse at abandoning names like Deville and Seville for alpha-numerics like CTS, STS, and SRX, which confuse a lot of consumers. Bulbous Blunder
Then there’s the question of negative brand legacy. As GM has dramatically improved its Chevrolet Impala and Malibu sedans, there has been much internal discussion about whether consumers will embrace the substantially improved designs since they bear names that are associated with rental-agency cars and past banal designs. Chrysler recently launched a newly designed sedan, the Sebring, after much deliberation inside the company about whether the car should have an all new name. “I think you can revive interest in an old name with an excellent design,” says AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson.
In the case of bringing back the Taurus name, Ford has another issue. The Five Hundred sedan has been much criticized for its bulbous exterior design. Even Ford President of the Americas Mark Fields last December called it “the much-derided Five Hundred.” Sales of the Five Hundred last year reached just 84,000, down 22% from the year earlier. That’s substantially below Ford’s sales goal. By the admission of Ford’s own managers, the Five Hundred was abandoned, from a marketing standpoint, after its 2004 introduction as 2005 model.
The problem for Ford was that the reviews by most in the auto press were so scathing that the car lost all momentum after its launch. Taking the most heat was the dated exterior design, which many compared to a 1990s Volkswagen Passat, as well as an under-powered engine. Ford solved the engine problem by putting a 3.5 liter V6 engine in the sedan to replace the 3.0 liter engine. The 2008 model will also be updated with Ford’s now-signature three-bar front grille. From Bricks to Mush
Only time will tell if the Taurus name still has some magic in it. “The Taurus was an excellent name when the car launched in the 1980s, and it has great awareness, which is important,” says Max Richards, a Seattle-based independent marketing consultant who often helps companies with product naming. “Now, Ford can just worry about advertising the vehicle’s benefits without having to pump the market just to recognize a name that has no awareness.”
