Racing marketing against design

When image overtook product

No other film in recent memory nails the problematic of today’s paradoxical design condition more than 2019’s brilliant Ford vs Ferrari by James Mangold. And I’m talking “design” with a capital D here: product, branding, advertising, architecture, copy writing, etc. are all relevant design disciplines whose paths to crisis have been brought on through convoluted ideas, confused goals, and stiff hierarchies by a marketing monster that in the 60’s was still in its baby steps. In that respect F v F can be viewed as an anti-Mad Men trip, showing us at what point the domain of marketing extinguished the modernist idea of product-led design purpose. We witness how design moved from being a form of “construction” with recursive building blocks of substance and craft towards a reflective construct of image and pretension. There was a time when brand, product, and experience were thought of as one necessary equilibrium and as the image of a brand started to outweigh the disposition of the product, things went off track big time. After spending years in the design, marketing, brand, and technology fields, I can tell you the film’s story arc, characters, and takeaway are engaged in a maelstrom of empirical and artistic forces that are still 100% relevant today. The core premise is a marketing campaign by Ford that pits the brand against Ferrari in the 1966 Le Mans race to construct an image of automotive and industrial superiority.

Proof through courage

The premise above is actually rooted in a courageous idea where a trifecta of Ford (the brand), the car’s design (the product), and a risky real life competition (the experience), ladder up to a clever brand statement that surely would make any customer respect the brand more. There is a moment early in the film when Ford’s Marketing VP Lee Iacocca pushes for delivering a proof of product power through the act of a true performance, and not through verbal marketing fluff: what could be more convincing than Ford being synonymous with speed and dominance by REALLY winning races at Le Mans? Unfortunately, instead of summoning the confidence to design a perfect race car, the Ford CEO immediately opts for making an offer on buying Ferrari only to be turned down. Only Ferrari’s rejection is leading him back to building a Ford race car in hopes to win at Le Mans AND to beat (and shame) Ferrari. This personal vendetta is kicking off a battle in a totally unprecedented marketing arena for two brands of completely different constitutions where the ultimate prize is a definition of a winning product.

The industrial complex vs the family business

A great scene in the early quarter of the film is an announcement by Henry Ford II inside the main production hall. He’s screaming at the workers that Ford is not up to par and is losing market share. This was at a time when a billionaire CEO could actually be huddling with his $80 a month conveyor belt operator and be available to personally coach his workforce. The scene is then brilliantly juxtaposed against what immediately follows - from the reality of the shop Ford II walks into a huge isolated, air conditioned conference room, and his marketing team starts to present ideas that take him from the garage to the world of glitz and glamour. On one side a world of grease and oil, on the other a comfy suite with fantastical ambitions. When we shortly thereafter see Enzo Ferrari’s “office” near Modena, we can’t tell where his home, the garage, and the factory start and end. It’s all the same. Ferrari is delivering a product of elegance without needing a marketing team to construct an image that supersedes the oil and grease. Right off the bat, for Ferrari, there is only one reality: the product. For Ford, there is also a brand position that is less about what the product is but what it could be.

Too big to scale

Another significant moment is following “the red envelope” that the project manager Carroll Shelby sees being passed inside of Ford’s headquarters. As he witnesses through how many hands it travels through and how many people are involved in decision making, in sharp contrast to Ferrari’s small unit, our perception of scale is put into question: is small actually faster than big? Is a team more efficient than a single leader? Are many ideas more powerful than just one?, etc. For the first time, we feel pity for the scale of Ford as more scale means more voices, approvals and variables. In other words, your scale becomes your own worst enemy. Interestingly, it is the project manager Shelby who remains caught in the middle of both worlds for most of the film as he keeps being stretched between the garage and the conference room. He is handling design, management, and marketing “negotiations”. This role still exists in any innovative design project today and unfortunately, it remains doomed.

Engineering cars vs engineering the winning image.

The true winner

As Enzo Ferrari asks the question about who will have final sign-off on decisions if Ford were to own Ferrari - and as he shuts the door on Ford after hearing the obvious - we already know who will win no matter how the outcome of the race. It will be the brand that fights for freedom of self-governance and not the brand that will use any money or any means to design a perfect car. It is precisely that which puts the halo over brands like Ferrari, and not a photograph of a logo crossing the finishing line. After the final race when Ford wins, the photo opportunities helped the giant to tell a momentary story of success. When we see Enzo Ferrari lose and walk away from the race track, it seems no more profound than him having a bad day at the office. Nothing more. A few months later while Ferrari is back doing exactly what they have always done, we see Carroll Shelby spending his time at a Ford dealership selling cars to ignorant middle aged men who want to buy the image of speed without understanding the passion of design. The effects of a successful ad campaign that he helped to create leave him frustrated and depressed. The image won, the product lost, and so did the sincerity of the Ford brand. One brand going from campaign to campaign, in search for an image that continuously says something new; the other brand letting the product, the design, and the passion BE the marketing.

“Jeep is America's only real sports car.” Enzo Ferrari

Where reality and possibility meet

Paradoxically, a huge enterprise making cars for the masses, and a bespoke high-end atelier do have one thing in common: the need for being clearly understood and a single place in our mind that we can believe in. After the dust settles, what does the Ford brand stand for? Then and today? Accessibility, comfort, affordability, heritage, power...those five things are four things too many. We know what Ferrari stands for - we believed it then and we still love it today. Ford is an iconic American brand like no other. Do young people love the Ford brand of now, and do middle aged Americans like the cars just about enough to stay loyal? At one point even the powerful image of nostalgia will pale next being able to connect in the now. The recipe for brand success remains the same: Embrace the product, find your one true story and you will win.

FORD VS FERRARI