The lead story in The New York Times’ business section today featured James Farley, Ford’s CMO (and chief “believer”) who left a cushy position at Toyota to turn around sales for the Detroit automaker. A former Ford owner myself, I count myself among one of the people Farley is trying to convert. I am a nonbeliever in the brand, based on the number of times I got stuck on the side of the interstate waiting on AAA with my Ford. (Easily four or five. Compare that to the big fat zero times my previously owned Corolla has broken down in the 10 years I’ve owned it, and you can see where my brand loyalty lies.)

I’m fascinated by this article, because Farley has a really interesting story to tell — the renewed commitments to innovation and quality at Ford in recent years — and a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in telling it: public perception that the company’s product is crap. The outcome of this story remains to be seen, but I’m interested in the elements of his strategy:

• He seeks the truth. Farley talks about how, when he first worked for Toyota in Europe, he used to walk around parking lots for hours looking at what kinds of cars people were driving, and then he started exploring why. “When I’m in a new situation, my formula is to really find the truth in things, to observe and get close to the truth.”A couple of my clients told me recently that their organizations “don’t believe in testing,” making me realize how rare it is for companies to want to spend the time getting to the true heart of the matter, especially if it makes things much messier. Farley’s approach takes longer and isn’t convenient, but when he’s a position of turning things on their ear, it’s what’s necessary to find the right direction.
• He engages his sales channel in a unique way. Through the years of Ford’s lame advertising campaigns and watered-down messaging, the real victims have been the dealers, who don’t know how to talk about the product at the point of sale. The Times article talks about how Farley has brought together small gatherings of dealers and paired them up with Ford engineers, so the true experts can bring valuable information about what the company’s doing to improve its cars to the salespeople, who can in turn use real-life examples and anecdotes to educate and impress customers. The article shared how in one case, a Ford chemical engineer was talking in great detail to dealers from agricultural communities about the soybean foam used inside Ford seats. “‘Do you know how happy it makes me to see a Ford engineer talking to Ford dealers about soybean foam so they can tell their customers who are farmers?’ Mr. Farley said. ‘I mean, how freaking cool is that?’”
• He’s building a brand on real emotion and tangible facts. Rather than rolling out yet another series of copycat TV ads with pop songs and Gen Y actors, Ford is figuring out a way to talk about its brand with actual examples of technical innovations and improvements, while trying to express real heart in the importance of Ford as part of America’s heritage and its survival in the future. The article said Farley recently told a crowd of Ford dealers: “‘I believe, in many ways, the future of Ford is the future of our country … The work here is simply more important than the work I was doing at Toyota.’”