Pickup Lines

Sales of gas-guzzling pickup trucks are softening due to high gasoline prices, so PR Week reports that the Ford Motor Company has launched a series of PR stunts aimed at pumping up sales to country folk, including sponsoring a monster truck rally, NASCAR races, and a marketing arrangement with country singer Toby Keith to have a video play at the beginning of Keith's concerts, showing him driving an F-series pickup. Meanwhile Toyota, "one of the few automakers currently doing very well," is holding seminars to talk up the fuel efficiency of its hybrid pickups. Which strategy is working? Ford's CEO has talked big about being an environmentalist for years, but has repeatedly reneged on its promises to build more fuel-efficient vehicles while his company loses money and market share. "Had Mr. Ford produced more fuel-efficient vehicles like hybrids sooner," observes the New York Times, "he not only would have found his company keeping pace with nimble foreign competitors like Toyota when oil prices spiked, but he also would have been able to illustrate the bottom-line merit of his environmental values. Instead, Ford, is again in the all-too-familiar spot of playing corporate catch-up."