Ford brings agencies together to form full-service ‘Blue Hive’
Ford has brought all of its agencies into one office to establish a set-up known as Blue Hive’ in a bid to streamline its marketing needs, Mumbrella can reveal.
The move sees the teams servicing the Ford account from sister WPP agencies JWT, Wunderman and Mindshare sharing a new working space in Melbourne to manage the account needs for creative and media respectively.
Blue Hive follows on from the creation of Team Detroit in the US which unified JWT, Young & Rubicam, Wunderman, Ogilvy & Mather, MEC and Mindshare in 2006, and effectively creates an in-house full service agency for the motor brand, handling integrated strategy, digital, communications and media business under one roof.
Mumbrella understands WPP agencies dedicated to Ford have been progressing towards this model since the establishment of Team Detroit in 2007.
It is now operating in London, Shanghai, Sao Polo and 16 other markets having also most recently launched in Delhi.
The Ford account, according to Nielsen, had a media spend of $38.7m in the June 2012 to June 2013 period.
Ford is currently playing on its sponsorship with The Voice in its latest campaign which features the singing competition’s host Darren McMullen promoting the Kuga.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV_8NEhiZKQ
Miranda Ward
Linkedin
Hopefully this will result in a vastly improved marketing plan and execution. Ford creative is sadly lacking and other manufacturers have bought market share with a lesser product. Namely Hyundai over the last 5 years.
The reality is an account the size of Fords should be handled by a hungry boutique.
They would have to improve their product before the Blue hive team could imporve the marketing.
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Smart move by Ford and WPP to follow specialisation model.
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