Ford's Luxury Brands Look Beyond Age to Target Ad Campaigns for Cars

IRVINE, Calif. AP reported that Ford is claiming that "there's nothing wrong with aging customers, according to the head of Ford Motor Co.'s Lincoln Mercury division. He says they've got the energy and, more importantly, can afford Ford's premium brands.

"Seventy-year-olds have never been younger than they are today," Lincoln Mercury president Brian Kelley said Wednesday night during a dinner with reporters in advance of Thursday's annual shareholders meeting.

While marketers have long coveted younger buyers as a fertile and free-spending demographic group, Ford's luxury brands are looking beyond age to target advertising campaigns.

"It's psychographics, not just demographics," said Victor Doolan, executive director of North American marketing and distribution strategy for Ford's Premier Automotive Group.

"What's really more important is their ability to pay," Doolan said.

Commercials for Lincoln and Mercury vehicles won't try to capture the aging market with the music of its youth, as General Motors Corp.'s Cadillac division is doing by using a Led Zeppelin song in its commercials, Kelley said.

Instead, Ford is touting its luxury vehicles' comfort and styling to lure yuppies who are now in their fifties, may have grown children and are more concerned with pampering themselves.

They still want elegant, glamorous vehicles," Kelley said.

As part of Ford's restructuring moves, moribund models such as the Lincoln Continental and Mercury Cougar and Villager are being eliminated, while an updated version of the high profit Navigator sport utility vehicle is starting to arrive in showrooms.

A smaller SUV, the Lincoln Aviator, will arrive later this year, adding a further freshening to the Lincoln Mercury lineup.

More changes are likely since the Lincoln Mercury brands were moved out of Ford's Premier Automotive Group, the umbrella group for its upscale brands: Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover and Aston Martin.

The division is still based in the Premier Automotive compound in Irvine, south of Los Angeles, but the brands were moved last month to Ford's North American consumer business group.

The move came amid a shuffle that followed the resignation of Premier Automotive Group head Wolfgang Reitzle. He'll be replaced by Mark Fields, who heads Ford's Mazda unit, on July 1.

Kelley doesn't expect a reduction in Lincoln Mercury's image as the division returns to the Ford orbit.

"It's like coming home," he said.

Doolan scoffed at the suggestion of a divorce between Lincoln Mercury and other Premier Automotive brands since they'll all still be part of the Ford family, but said the now all-European brand unit "enables the brands to be more exclusive."

Volvo, however, is looking to broaden its appeal with a vehicle in the $24,000 range, the low end of its product line, Doolan said.

A mega-dealership will open in August in Scottsdale, Ariz., to sell Lincoln, Mercury and all the Premier Automotive Group brands, Kelley said.

The dealership will be operated by the United Auto Group, which is owned by racing legend Roger Penske. There will be separate showrooms for each brand, but they will share parts and service operations.

Kelley said it could be a model for more dealerships, although future versions might include just the Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover brands.