Automaker Riding The Hip Parade

To Sell Its Crossover Entry, Ford Pulls Out All the Niche Showstoppers

The latest marketing campaign by Ford offers seats to a Beyonce Knowles concert in Mexico and sponsors a Web site where the R&B superstar belts love songs in Spanish. The face staring out from Ford print ads is Korean heartthrob Ahn Jae Wook, with the sales pitch written in Chinese.

Ford has also enlisted R&B singer Kelis and hip-hop car guru and deejay Funkmaster Flex to hype its new small sport-utility vehicle, the Edge. The company is putting up graffiti murals in Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago and New York. It has sponsored a whole evening's worth of shows on the CW television network, a cable channel that attracts a large African American audience.

Ford, the iconic American brand that invented the mainstream car market, is devoting considerable energy to attracting niche customers. Its foreign rivals, such as Toyota, have lured away a huge, and growing, chunk of the American market, forcing Ford to concentrate on the edges.

For the first time, Toyota outsold Ford in a U.S. monthly sales race this year. Analysts say the company is poised to overtake Ford next year as the No. 2 seller of vehicles in the United States. Toyota is also threatening to outmaneuver General Motors to become the No. 1 vehicle producer on a global basis.

"Ownership of even a smaller piece of the pie is still ownership," said Kenneth C. Herbst, assistant professor of marketing at the College of William and Mary. "There is still money to be made at any percentage of the market."

While many other customers have fled, lots of African Americans have stayed loyal to carmakers in Detroit. African American and Hispanic artists celebrate American car brands in music and culture. Hip-hop and R&B have given Cadillac new life with lyrical backing of the over-the-top Escalade SUV and the flashy Cadillac brand itself.

As part of the Ford campaign, Kelis will pump up the Edge with a song:

So clean in my Edge

Steady headed to the spot

Speakers bump thump thump

All you hearin' on the block

I live life loud