The Edsel

Here in DC, the Washington Post ran an interesting article about the Ford Edsel (I say this as if the Washington Post is like the Valley News Dispatch and no one other than Washingtonians read it). Anyway...the Edsel. It was a debacle. The epitome of failed media hype.

Ford exec's spent countless hours and dollars into the new area of "motivational research". Tons of effort went into trying to find a name that was agreeable to the American public. In a stroke of brilliance...in attempts to score some points with president Henry Ford II...one day, suggested they name it after Ford II's father, and Henry Ford I son....Edsel Ford.

Who names there kid Edsel?

Anyway...then a bunch of engineers when crazy and decided to make an ugly ass car...complete with a push button transmission in the middle of the steering wheel.

The publicity leading up to the Edsel's release rivals any current day marketing blitz. Unfortunately...once people actually saw it...not so much. Here's an excerpt....

"We couldn't even get people to drive it," says Warnock. "They just didn't like the car. They just didn't like the front end."

That weird oval grille soon became a running gag. Wags joked that it looked like a horse collar or a toilet seat. Time magazine said it made the car look like "an Olds sucking a lemon."

But styling was hardly the worst problem. Oil pans fell off, trunks stuck, paint peeled, doors failed to close and the much-hyped "Teletouch" push-button transmission had a distressing tendency to freeze up. People joked that Edsel stood for "Every day something else leaks."

But the Edsel folks did not give up. No way. After months of sluggish sales, the crack PR team gathered to brainstorm ideas for selling Edsels. They were battered and weary and devoid of ideas until an adman named Walter "Tommy" Thomas blurted out a suggestion.

"Let's give away a [bleeping] pony," he said.

Much to Thomas's amazement, his idea was not only accepted, it was expanded. The geniuses at Edsel decided to advertise a promotion in which every Edsel dealer would give away a pony. It worked like this: If you agreed to test-drive an Edsel, your name would be entered into a lottery at the dealership, with the winner getting a pony.

Ford bought 1,000 ponies and shipped them to Edsel dealers, who displayed them outside their showrooms. Many parents, egged on by their pony-loving children, traipsed in to take a test drive. Unfortunately, many of the lucky winners declined the ponies, opting instead for the alternative -- $200 in cash -- and soon dealers were shipping the beasts back to Detroit.

Now the Edsel folks were not only stuck with a lot of cars they couldn't sell, they were also stuck with a lot of ponies they couldn't give away. The cars were easy enough to store, but the ponies required food. And after they ate the food, they digested the food. And then . . . another fine mess for Edsel.