The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) (24 page)

As the Model T prepared to go on the market, Ford advertising efforts escalated. With Pelletier's departure, ad policy was shaped by several individuals, including H. B. Harper, Robert Walsh, and sales manager Norval Hawkins. The company started a monthly in-house publication in April 1908, the
Ford Times,
and used it to inspire promotional efforts among the growing network of Ford dealers and salesmen. Articles entitled “Does Advertising Pay?,” “Living Advertising,” and “Suggestions for Advertising” spurred dealers to greater publicity campaigns and promised to supply them with “good-selling advertising copy and electrotypes or cut-outs of the cars.” Ford also launched its own national publicity campaign in 1909 with a flurry of ads in trade journals, newspapers, magazines, and special pamphlets.
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Ford advertising employed current tricks of the trade by deploying slogans, logos, and images. “Watch the Fords Go By” appeared constantly, of course, as did the phrase “The Universal Car.” The company created its famous trademark of “the winged pyramid”—a pyramid shape with wings sprouting from each side, with “Ford” emblazoned across the middle and “The Universal Car” in smaller letters beneath it—to adorn its ads as well as the show windows of most Ford dealers. Company boilerplate explained this imagery from ancient Egypt: “The pyramid suggests strength, permanency, stability—the conventionalized Sacred Ibis wings typify lightness, grace, speed. And on the winged pyramid is our advertising endeavor centered.” Then there was the flowing script of Ford that appeared not only in advertisements but on the radiator fronts of the Model T itself. Thus, in the years after 1909, an array of symbols clearly established Ford's new car in the mind of the average consumer. As a 1912ad declared, “You can't get beyond the domain of 'The Winged Pyramid.' ”
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The company and its dealers, embracing the philosophy that the best kind of advertising is free, did not shy away from headline-grabbing stunts and promotions. Ford distributors utilized hot-air balloons with the name of their business and “Ford Model T Cars” splashed in large letters across the side, which sailed around their towns attracting enormous amounts of attention. Many dealers offered demonstrations of stair-climbing. Max Gottberg of Columbus, Nebraska, for example, took one of his Model T's to the town's YMCA building, gathered a crowd, and proceeded to drive up the stone steps to show its ability to maneuver up steep, rough grades. The
Ford Times,
in a pictorial write-up, urged all its dealers to duplicate this feat for its publicity value.
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Perhaps the best example of Model T publicity came in the summer of 1909with the great Transcontinental Race from New York to Seattle. Set up as part of a publicity campaign for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held in Seattle that year, this endurance race appeared a heaven-sent advertising opportunity for the company and its new car. The race was scheduled to begin in New York City, proceed through St. Louis, and conclude in Seattle. Henry Ford immediately issued a challenge to all other automakers, offering to match the Model T against any of their models for “any sum of money that acceptants may suggest as a suitable purse.”

The race began on June 1, with two Model T's among the field of six. The Fords pulled into a quick lead in an uneventful first stage that brought them to St. Louis on June 5. In the Western portion of the race, however, problems mounted. Torrential rains and hailstorms bogged the drivers down in mud and washed-out roads; mountainous areas in the Rockies, with roads that were little more than goat paths, caused broken wheels and bent
axles. Bad maps and lack of dependable gas and oil sources did not help matters. After a series of adventures that included skidding down a fourteen-foot embankment into a stream, suffering a fire started by a careless bystander who struck a match on the side of the gas tank, getting lost so completely that the car had to travel eight miles on railroad ties and dash through a mountain tunnel to get back on track, and sinking through the crust of a four-foot snowdrift in a mountain pass and being dug out by a railroad crew with shovels, Ford No. 2 dashed into Seattle the winner on June 22.A crowd of two hundred thousand, including Henry Ford, who had trav-eled west for the occasion, were there to cheer the Model T home. It had completed the run in twenty-two days and fifty-five minutes. Another car, the Shawmut, arrived seventeen hours later, closely followed by Ford No. 1. The other entries failed to complete the race.
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The Transcontinental Race generated tremendous publicity. The Ford Motor Company, boasting two out of the top three finishers, benefited from headlines and dramatic photos of the grime-covered victors that appeared in newspapers all over the country. Company advertising took full advantage of the race. During the contest, it urged dealers to publicize their Model T's by painting a large map of the United States on the salesroom window, marking out the route and all checkpoints, and then moving small car icons along as telegrams announced progress of the Ford entries. This “has never failed to keep an interested crowd before the window,” the company told its dealers. After the victory in Seattle, Ford launched an advertising blitz in newspapers that announced in giant letters, “FORD—WINNER OF THE O. to O. CONTEST.” The text noted, “The important consideration for automobile buyers is that the winning car was a standard stock car, an exact duplicate of the regular Model T…. Nothing special, nothing better than regular, nothing different from what any buyer gets.” Employing David-and-Goliath imagery, ads argued that the great race demonstrated the superiority of the lightweight Model T over its much heavier opponents. “The little fellows led the way … [and] practically ran away from their powerful adversaries,” they noted.
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Beyond such special events and attention-grabbing stunts, however, the company's steady flow of advertisements offered an intriguing mix of messages. On the one hand, these early ads featured traditional themes that trumpeted the Model T's utilitarian virtues. Typically, buyers were told that “the mechanical perfection, strength, light weight, and simplicity of the Ford car make it the people's utility. And they average only about two cents a mile to operate and maintain.” The Model T's low price and dependability also generated much ad copy. A 1909 advertising catalogue displayed vanadium steel in key components providing strength and lightness; the
best materials for tires and castings; dependable planetary transmission and rugged three-point suspension; sophisticated lubrication and cooling systems; and overall, as the pamphlet stated at the bottom of every other page, “High Priced Quality in a Low Priced Car.”
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Many early Ford advertisements for the Model T, however, stressed a subtle, seductive new consumer vision. Visual and verbal images invoked not durability or performance but the pleasure, self-fulfillment, happiness, leisure, and romance likely to be gained. In 1908, a Model T ad described the vehicle as “a roomy, commodious, comfortable family car that looks good, and is as good as it looks.” Others underscored its role in democratizing leisure. “If there were no Fords, automobiling would be like yachting— the sport of rich men,” declared one ad, but this vehicle “brought the price down within reason—and the easy reach of the many.” As another ad noted succinctly, “It's a universal servant because it serves everybody. It's a universal luxury because it gives pleasure to everybody.”
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Explicit messages of pleasure and comfort pushed to the fore in many Model T ads. How much better to step into this vehicle and “drive, warm and dry,” than “to get wet and cold, walking to and waiting for the trolley car, and then stand up in the crowded car on the wet floor while the cold breezes chase the dangerous chills up and down your back every time the door opens.” Such promises of physical comfort were a prologue for assurances of emotional enjoyment. “The family car of pleasure,” one ad described the Model T; another assured that the vehicle met “the requirements of pleasure” for men of business, who would “find this car a dignified appearing and entirely satisfactory assistance in the fulfillment of their engagements, both business and social.” Ford ads followed the pleasure trail into the realm of romance. A 1911promotional pamphlet for the Model T featured a gentleman assisting a fashionably dressed young woman out of the car above these enticing words: “A very pretty girl and a charming scene from California.” A 1910 effort depicted an eager, grinning young man, straw hat tilted back, sitting in the back seat of a Model T with
two
attractive females. The irreverent caption made the possibilities clear: “He loves me— he loves me not—he loves me—he loves me not—Oh pshaw, we haven't got the time to finish this. Look at the picture and decide for yourself.”
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Many of the most vibrant Ford ads, however, argued that the Model T offered to ordinary citizens the prospect of new and exciting experiences through greater mobility. “No Ford owner ever doubts the ability of his car to go wherever he desires to travel,” the text of one ad informed consumers rather breathlessly. “He tours in it, travels in it, hunts in it, climbs mountains and crosses deserts.” The automobile, according to a strategy urged upon all Ford dealers in
Ford Times,
provided a unique way to travel and
enjoy American historic sites. A 1913 ad underscored the enriching possibilities of tourism. “Every day is ‘Independence Day’ to him who owns a Ford,” it declared. “Liberty from confinement to a narrowing environ-ment—and that at small cost—is one of the many boons which the sturdy, powerful Ford has brought to untold thousands. Why not to you?”
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The liberation theme found a special focus with regard to American women. In a pamphlet entitled
The Woman and the Ford
(1912), the company contended that the Model T's easy mode of operation, lack of expense (“Trust women to find the bargains”), uncomplicated mechanical structure, and cleanliness (“no grease or dirt to soil dainty gowns”) made it “a woman's car.” Moreover, its lightweight durability offered special opportunities to roam the countryside and visit interesting sites, an important desire among vigorous, modern women who “crave exercise and excitement, who long for relief from the monotony of social and household duties.” In fact, escape from Victorian restraints was the pamphlet's centerpiece. The opening passage of
The Woman and the Ford
punched the message home:

The advertising appeal to the new consumer ethos of leisure, status, and emotional self-fulfillment was summarized in the 1910
Ford Times.
Aimed at dealers all over the country, an article entitled “Why Doesn't More Auto Copy Talk My Language?” noted many car ads concentrated on a vehicle's features, such as toughness, speed on a straightaway, climbing ability on hills, mechanical innovations, and maintenance costs. This emphasis missed the special ability of the automobile to bestow status, emotional satisfaction, and invigorating new experiences. The shrewd Ford dealer learned this lesson: “The time is now come for automobiles to be advertised as a necessity for one's health and comfort, and the pleasure which they give.”
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As the company deployed advertising to present an image of the Model T as a quintessential consumer item, no one played a more crucial role than a charismatic, silver-tongued salesman who emerged as an influential figure in 1908. Ford's universal car was in the last stages of development, standing
poised to enter the market, and this young man positioned himself at the center of things. His energetic activities in promotion, sales, and advertising proved essential to the vehicle's popularity. In his skillful promotion of the Model T, he was a pioneer in the creation of a new consumer America.

In 1908,
Ford Times
carried a pithy article entitled “The Man Who Does Things.” Aimed at employees in the company, it defined the type of person whom every business sought to hire: someone who took the initiative, spent as many hours as necessary to complete a task, sought to advance the interests of the organization, was absorbed in his work, and valued results. He also radiated confidence. “There is usually a settled, well-defined air of assured success in his manner and movements,” the essay noted. The message of this tract was predictable to anyone who knew the author, a dynamic figure who had burst into the Ford company only a few months earlier and transformed its marketing efforts. Perhaps more than anyone else, Norval A. Hawkins presented the Model T to the American consumer as the har-binger of a new age.
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