Ford Lately

Ford Motor’s marketing chief, Jim Farley, thinks people are no longer brand- loyal to cars because quality has become a commodity, reports Bill Vlasic in the New York Times (10/21/09). "Brand loyalty has shrunk because of widespread improvements in the products," says Jim. "The ‘trust factor’ is more or less the same for most cars." But he also thinks winning us back is more about the future than the past. "I can’t tell you how many car clubs I have been to where they own old Mustangs and vintage T-Birds, but they drive Camrys," he says.

At least for now: "So far this year, only about 20 percent of car shoppers stayed with the same brand when they purchased a new vehicle," according to CNW Marketing Research. That’s quite different from the 1980s, when "nearly four in five Americans were repeat buyers." Chris Allen, who is 24, personifies the trend. He grew up in a family that owned nothing but General Motors cars, but now he drives a Volkswagen. "If G.M. produced a vehicle I wanted, it would have been at the top of my list," he says. "But they don’t."

Some suggest that automakers invested too heavily in advertising that promoted corporate brands rather than individual models (i.e., "Have You Driven a Ford Lately?"). No. But Toyota found, for example, "that the rock-solid quality that made its Camry sedan the top-selling car in America did not lure many buyers to its full-size Tundra pickup." Jeremy Anwyl of Edmunds says the focus these days is on "value," and cites Hyundai as having done a particularly good job with that message. Hyundai and Kia, not coincidentally, have replaced Chrysler and Pontiac in the top ten of the best-selling cars in America.