Ford picks APL for pounds 12m Credit push

The Ford Motor Company’s financial arm, Ford Credit, has appointed

Ammirati Puris Lintas to create its first advertising campaign.

The agency, which may also pick up the pan-European brief for the work,

will now develop a pounds 12m UK branding drive to attract non-Ford car

owners to Ford Credit’s financial services.

Ford Credit, which claims to be the largest automotive finance company

in Europe, presently sells its services via dealerships across

Europe.

The company will be relaunching some services such as motor insurance,

as well as introducing a number of unnamed products. Its brief is to

communicate via traditional above-the-line media as well as the

internet.

Ford’s decision to extend its financial products division is in line

with its long-term intention to cross-sell different services to

consumers who are not Ford customers.

The company’s business strategy aims to control customers’ spending from

the ’showroom to the scrap-yard’.

Last year at the Detroit Motor Show, the company announced its intention

to diversify into other motoring services.

Earlier this year, it paid pounds 1bn for repair services firm Kwik

Fit.

Ford Credit, which launched its own-brand car insurance last Autumn, has

come under increasing pressure from other well-known brands like Virgin

and Tesco, who have also launched car insurance packages.

Ford Credit refused to comment on the appointment or reveal which

agencies Ammirati Puris Lintas had pitched against.

The company did not approach Ford’s roster agencies, Ogilvy & Mather,

Young & Rubicam and J Walter Thompson.

William Eccleshare, chairman of APL, would not confirm his agency’s

appointment.

The decision to award APL with the business may help offset last week’s

loss of pounds 40m in billings after BMW awarded the Rover brand’s

advertising to M&C Saatchi.

This article was first published on Marketing