Auto Brands’ DNA

1. Auto Brands’ DNA Ford Motor Company

2. PAG: Premier Automotive Group • Premier Automotive Group (PAG) is the stable where Ford Motor Company houses its prime thoroughbreds. The company oversees the sales, marketing, communications, franchise development, parts, distribution, and customer service efforts of Ford's premier brands: Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover. PAG is based in the UK, where its brands originated (with the exception of Volvo). It has opened an office in Irvine, California, in order to take advantage of the US luxury-car market (the largest in the world). The US arm of the company only handles the operations of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands.

3. Ford Brands • Ford • Lincoln • Mercury • Mazda • Volvo • Jaguar • Land Rover

4. Ford China • ford mondeo 福特蒙迪欧、 • ford focus 福特福克斯、 • ford fiesta 福特嘉年华、 • ford maverick 福特翼虎

5. Ford Brands • We offer a variety of cars, trucks, SUVs and many other products and services to the automotive consumer. In our second century of business, we're in a position to appeal to the widest range of potential customers. Each of our automotive brands has a unique personality and holds a distinct place in the Ford Motor Company family.

6. Ford built a one-hundred-sixty-billion-dollar business on a little blue oval. In the late eighties, to lure wealthy customers, the number two automaker began its push into the luxury market, buying Ford brands outside the U.S.: Aston Martin, Jaguar, Volvo, and Land Rover. Today they make up Ford’s Premier Automotive Group, or PAG. Mark Fields is PAG’s new chief. At forty-one, he’s a hotshot executive, with cars in his blood.

7. This is a dream job for me. And, and the reason for that is…I remember, when I was growing up in New Jersey, and I used to go by the, uh,…jaguar dealership. And my friends and I used to go by there and think, oh, one day…

8. Today, Fields has his choice of Jag or an Aston Martin, or two other high-end brands. • One of the things you said about your industry and about your cars is that it has a brand DNA. What does that mean?.

9. Brand DNA, very simply,…if, if the vehicle was a person, how would you describe them? Or, alternatively, when you look at the vehicle and you get in the vehicle and drive it, what’s the taste or the flavour of that vehicle?

10. CNN Reporter:But selling luxury and getting flavour right means keeping the Ford brand out of sight. • Mark Fields: Most people don’t know that Ford owns the brands in PAG. “And we want to,…I think for the most part,…we want to keep it that way.

11. At the retail level, the Ford blue oval is conspicuously absent. Dealerships, like this one in Dortmund, Germany, sell the Ford PAG brands under one roof. Separate entrances and showrooms clearly distinguish each brand.

12. For those customers that do not know that we own these various brands, that’s fine,…that’s fine with me.

13. But, behind the scenes PAG and Ford reap savings on common back offices, sales, marketing, and even repair shops. The Ford global muscle also comes in large-scale investment in safety and navigational systems that could be shared.

14. Engineer: And so…we can do the comparison…and we look at it for commonality in areas where the customer doesn’t see… • Mark Fields: Right.

15. But critics warned that, to increase profits, Ford parts may wind up in Jaguars or Aston Martins. Fields says cost-cutting won't harm the brands’ integrity.

16. If we say, well, we can save a certain amount of money by going to a certain suspension, but we realise that if we do that, we would compromise the brand character of the vehicle, then we will not do that. Because, in the long term, that will degrade the brand. At the same time, there’ll be other instances, for example, where we find some components, which do not affect the dynamic personality of the vehicle, that we can share amongst the entire group that does bring costs down.