The Revival Of the Ford Bronco

Welcome to the Branding Deep Dive Podcast, where we explore both well-known and lesser-known brands, delving into what drives the loyalty they've earned. I'm your host, Ahmed, and I'm passionate about brand strategy. Today, I'm joined by Abdul Mannan, an aspiring physician and a design enthusiast. Our exciting topic for today is the revival of the Ford Bronco. But before we dive in, let's play a quick ad to give everyone a sense of what we're discussing.

[Ford Bronco Ad]

Wow, that ad gets me pumped every time, with a hint of the Dark Knight vibe towards the end. Abdul, did you notice that part where they showcased the different environments the Bronco can tackle, and the Bronco itself changed colors to match those environments? It's a nice touch.

Now, let's jump right into our discussion about the Ford Bronco. We'll start by examining what they're doing well in terms of branding and then move on to what we believe they should do as they approach their release date.

To give our listeners some context, our podcast focuses on dissecting successful branding. Abdul and I often sit down to discuss brands like the Ford Bronco and uncover new aspects of their branding each time we do. So, let's begin with the logo.

Abdul, in our previous conversations, you pointed out the change in the Bronco logo from the old cursive and italic style to the bold, boxed lettering with the horse on top. Can you elaborate on that?

Abdul: Absolutely. The original cursive and italic logo was a unique combination not seen frequently. I've noticed a similar font used at places like Starbucks and Maserati. The old logo had that classic vibe, but the new one retains some of that while conveying speed, agility, and versatility. It's like a different breed of Ford, emphasizing strength and command.

It's intriguing how they've separated the Bronco branding from Ford, similar to how they brand the Mustang with the horse emblem. Speaking of the horse emblem, what are your thoughts on that, Ahmed?

Ahmed: The use of the horse emblem is fascinating. When you think of Mustang, the name itself implies wildness, but still somewhat tamed. However, with the Bronco, they've fully embraced the wild, even in its definition as a wild, half-tamed horse. This revival focuses on its off-road capability, a significant shift from its previous messaging that highlighted highway driving. Why do you think they made this change?

Abdul: I believe they've honed in on a niche market and recognized the increasing desire of customers to engage with the outdoors. This focused approach allows them to fulfill a specific need and capitalize on the current trend of people seeking outdoor adventures. COVID-19 has encouraged people to appreciate the wild more, making this timing quite favorable for their marketing efforts.

Ahmed: Absolutely. People are eager to get outdoors, as we've seen in the popularity of outdoor activities like hiking and biking. Now, let's recap the key branding decisions: the logo, the separation from Ford, and the use of the horse emblem. They've made excellent choices in these areas.

Abdul: Indeed, and let's not forget the consistency between the logo and the advertising, such as the use of the horse in the same position in the video. It reinforces the message of wildness and aligns perfectly with the brand image.

Ahmed: Absolutely, it's a clever touch. Now, let's transition to discuss their advertising strategy. Ford has historically used the slogan "Built for Tough" for its best-selling F-150. However, with the Bronco, they've shifted to "Built Wild."

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like we build this right although ford has this image that it's an american made like we do all this stuff here and we build it you know i mean like although some of that a lot of it is true like you know we have a plant here in dearborn detroit area uh the rooja river factory where they do a lot of the f-150s um and they have plenty of chicago like they have a lot of plants in the u.s but at the same time like not every single car ford makes is built here right but there's this perception that people have that ford is american right especially the f-150 right and that when you use the word built i feel like they're able to leverage that same sense of american-ness just with one word because it already has a forward association with it and when they say it's built you already know all right this is built american american and then when i say wild all right like this is something different than the f-150 it's not just tough like this is different and they're clarifying right they're like okay you know we have built ford tuff which is the f-150 which is our trucks built for wild they're really clarifying look these are very different cars you're not going to be using them you know crisscross you know exactly one for the other yeah like exactly f150 is like look if you need to tow a thousand pounds like this is tough like this will get the job done wild is like hey if you're stuck in the middle of the forest yeah or in the middle of like uh like sand dunes or something like this will you want to get into those places yeah exactly right um like that video that you shared the other day it's like they're literally getting out of a like a pit that's like at almost at 50 60 degree angle i i don't think the ford uh f-150 can do that no way 150 got stuck in there yeah you can like it would be tough to get out unless you have like a like a moon roof or something like yeah the doors would cave in or something but um that car and that's part of their marketing too right the on the bronco nation youtube page all they all the videos they have so far are just like that where they take the bronco into wilderness and they test it out in different areas yeah exactly yep and they have like a whole team there they're all watching they're clapping and it's part of the whole like this is built for the wild you know what i mean so yeah um really diving all into this wild thing and i'm surprised you know what i mean so i didn't realize how big of a niche this would be but i will say me myself after seeing that ad i'm excited i'm not the most outdoor person and i'm not into cars that much either i don't know about you how you feel about it but i mean i wasn't into cars a lot but i do know that one of the first cars that i ever liked was actually the chevrolet trailblazer i just like that it was like this boxy like all-terrain vehicle that could get you anywhere you can beat it up and it would still be working um and then i got into racing but like you know interested in racing cars and stuff like that but when this came out when you showed me the commercial i was like man it's it's totally calling me back to like childhood days where i used to like to like those like those jeeps yeah yeah and and what's interesting is we we both have a friend mutual friend i won't say his name but i have never seen so he's a doctor i have never seen him post or mention anything about cars in my life like i've known him for what like six seven years now yeah um but when this bronco came out his name he's there where and they get all these new cars every like whatever however it works and there's no whole car driving at the time and now he's like he's freaking out about this car he's posting it on instagram uh and sharing all this stuff and i'm like man what since when were you into cars the other thing is like my dad works for ford but my dad's not a huge car guy he's in the i.t space right and my dad was excited about it and i was like for me for my dad to be excited about something that's like like that's something you know what i mean they did a really good job yeah and it strikes a chord with more people than i expected um and let's just jump into the way they've been advertising and besides the ad that we already watched they have a couple different campaigns that they have going um i don't know if you've seen these but they have these like five-minute 10-minute documentary things i saw the rock climber one yeah so they have three of them so they have three versions of bronco they have the two-door four-door and the sport um and so they have uh the two-door they have a wildlife photographer i forgot his name johnny chin or something um he he's actually like he's famous for a lot of like the rock climbing shots with like mountains and like they're really amazing photography shots and he's done some documentaries as well award-winning documentaries so he actually produced these uh these videos yeah the next one was a professional rock climber the sport it's like a i think she's like 21 she's a professional rock climber she's trying to win the world and she has a bronco she's driving a bronco she's going to practice uh in a bronco yeah and the third one is like a country singer and i'm actually i'm actually not familiar with the whole country music scene so i'm not sure who he is but he takes the bronco into nature and that's where he gets like his inspiration for his music and he starts singing a song so do you remember his name i can pull it up while i ask you the next question is what i can do and so my question is when you see these campaigns like what are your thoughts like what are they doing well here um and what are they capitalizing on in these campaigns what they're doing well here is really connecting to the uh the audience that they're potentially going to be uh building for right um so we already talked about the fact that they're going to be focusing on a very niche market um and they're going to be uh building towards that and so to have these famous people in these different uh fields that are separate but also still connected to the wild and using them to show how the bronco can be used uh and how the bronco is a solution to what they want to do or what they need to do is just a brilliant marketing strategy you know we all see in ourselves a photographer i'm sure we all have instagram accounts right we all see ourselves you know i'm sure as potentially rock climbers or being interested in outdoor in general right there's no one that wouldn't say that would say like oh yeah i'm not a big fan of the outdoors like i'm just gonna sit inside all day or whatever right and you know we all see in ourselves um someone who gets inspired by nature in one way or the other and so the broncos tapping into that intrinsic like uh value that we have within ourselves and to show how the bronco uses that um through these commercials is amazing to see yeah there's one point i want to touch on there before i touch on it i want to say the guy's name is kip moore and what's i think the reason they probably picked him is he has a song like if you look at him up on google search kip moore one of the first results that comes up is something about a truck okay there you go i think it totally fits the uh the vibe that they're going for like uh the tough guy kind of you know loves a truck uh so the other thing i wanted to say is that just to touch on your point and expand on it a little bit is good marketing good advertising what it does is not necessarily sell a product but get you excited about an experience oh yeah right and with these like the inner photographer in us like you said or the inner rock climber the inner uh musician in us is kind of ignited like hey man like you do realize if you had this bronco we could go to the forest and we could do these things you know what i mean yeah the other thing if you believe in what you're selling it's not selling right and so if ford is actually all in on this wilderness thing like look we want to be people that make getting into the wilderness more accessible right that is a winning strategy yeah that is what's going to get them to that's what has caused them to be able to strike such a chord in so many people so quickly yeah and we haven't even touched on the the rich history of the bronco right so that's another thing they're doing well with that podcast that they talked about that they're talking about and stuff but exactly that later you're talking about before we we saw this uh tweet by ford saying that they uh that the bronco is going to be better than the jeep wrangler right and this is before this is before any um any real huncles are out there for anyone to review um so they're really setting the standard and the bar high for themselves and again it goes right back into their marketing it's like oh wow now they've set this expectation for themselves people are interested whether or not they're going to be meeting that expectation yeah and so they've generated an interest now it's like whether it's going to be whether it's actually going to be better than jeep or not um is a different story but now people are expecting and people are excited and just another way to get people excited yeah definitely just creating that competition like hey this is better and people want to then test it out and see you're going to see comparison videos you know what i mean like jeep wrangler versus 2021 ford bronco yeah and so even if it's not better there's specific things they've done that are different than the jeep wrangler which in those videos lends itself to that competition for example uh just off the top of my head what i remember is that the doors on the wrangler you can take them off but you can't store them in the vehicle right with the bronco you can take the doors off and they stay in in your trunk or something so right that's a and the mirrors are still accessible right so that's a huge differentiator from the jeep wrangler who for years and years and years have had the same like the appeal is with the wranglers you can take the doors off and it's like this oh let's i just remember i was getting like goes over any terrain right let's talk about that right so the original bronco what was the code name they called it uh the goat the goat yeah yeah goes over all terrain exactly and that's another thing where i don't like clearly they didn't do this on purpose but the goat nowadays you know what i mean has this connotation you're the greatest of all time right and so not just can you go over any terrain like it subliminally people are probably thinking like this car is like freaking amazing yeah right sure that's a brilliant move by making sure they dive into their history and they have that gem in their history where they can leverage yeah and they can say look the original name for this was the goat yeah and then just you know let them let their minds play with it right so they have they have like in the car they have goat modes like there's like five or four or five different modes and they call them goat modes and those like different allows you to get to different terrains um and the car kind of just modifies its uh its features by itself based on what you do you know what else they call back they can call back to um uh in the in the podcast that we were talking about they actually refer to ford being the first people to coin the term suv you know like a sports utility vehicle even though now it's called suburban utility vehicle they are the original original um definers of what an suv is and so they have that to leverage too like hey you know there's a bunch of species this is the original suv but where where the where the originals so yeah that i'm excited to see how they're going to leverage that just thinking about it so let's get into the podcast the podcast is amazing um it's just it's one it's it's it's called back it's doing a callback to all the original ford um uh you know enthusiasts right so it has a nostalgic uh element to it you know they're talking about the history of it they're talking about what kind of people drove it they're talking about the denver broncos quarterback that had one um talking about o.j simpson you know getting into one and getting caught getting into a cop chase and then it's also teaching people the history of the broncos so the people that aren't so familiar it's like hey this is what this was and i've learned so much from the podcast and man that's the point i want to touch on like why is it so important that they have this in today's day and age like if they let's imagine they release the bronco without this podcast how would that make things different it would definitely wouldn't be the same you know i think what people are looking for now it's so with with so much available to us so many different cars available to us so much different technology available to us so much choice in order for us to really make that decision everyone that's selling us something or giving us something or offering a solution has to like uh go that extra step and tell us about why their their their thing why their solution why their product is better than the rest when you can attach uh historical value historical relevance to it um i think it just takes it in in ways that um you wouldn't normally be able to do without it so absolutely definitely critical i think there's there's two things that i want to touch on um and you're familiar with gary vee as well but one of his thesis is thesis whatever the word is is that all companies first and foremost nowadays have to be media companies right and so i think this plays into ford's understanding of where the consumers are right if we want to make sure people are buying things they have to be bought into the vision of it and the second thing that i really want to touch on with this podcast is look every single company that's coming out nowadays every single product that's coming out nowadays it's about the future like you know this is electric this is why you know in the future this is gonna like this is this new tech is happening this new thing is happening here but this podcast like first off the bronco has a really rich history and even if they weren't making a car this would be an interesting listen just to know what happened with this right yeah and so they're diving back into their history and saying look this is what this car represented and we're trying to bring this back rather than you look at all these other companies that are you know taking over everything's autonomous everything is electric everything is future future future this is like look we're going back to the wild we're going back to our roots we're going back to what what we had this is what we had and i think that is such a genius strategy of like look everyone is giving you all this new stuff and even us you know we're giving you the maki we're giving you all this electric new stuff but here's what here's what we had right and let's go back to this too right and so uh another thing is like the power of story yeah right like if i want to [Music] like i'll just say for myself like before this podcast the advertising was good okay the advertising it got me excited for a brief moment in time right like i'm like oh i'm hyped i'll share it with one or two of my friends but the story got me bought in you know what i mean now i'm like okay i'm really rooting for this bronco to be successful yeah because i know of all the history everything that's associated with it all the the tough time it went through like uh just knowing everything that's happening the history that it has uh the love that the underground on broncos societies that that are out there iceland like just knowing all that i'm just like man like the next chapter of the story needs to be so epic yeah and i think that's why they're so confident in that tweet for example coming back to that tweet that you mentioned is that we know this is better than the jeep wrangler because our story is better than the jeep wrangler if i had to finish that statement you know what i mean right right yeah yeah yeah definitely yeah and i think i i i haven't done all the research but i want to kind of see how many how many car companies even have podcasts right that's like a new thing that's a good resource and uh we're definitely looking to see how like how other car companies kind of share their stories they have the tv advertisements for sure uh but you know to be innovative and to develop a podcast talking about the history that's different um and you mentioned that they have like the community too like that of bronco yeah real quick real quick i think that's a good transition point let's go into uh so another thing the podcast does is it expands that community so currently before the release of the bronco the new bronco there was an underground not underground per se but like it wasn't like common now it wasn't endorsed by ford right yeah there was a community of people that loved broncos and they uh it became like a collector item what ford has done such a good job with with this podcast is shine a light on these people give them a platform to say hey look we want you to be a part of this story to come back so now you have the buy-in from those people that are running these societies and now not only that they're reaching people like me and you who had no idea that there was these bronco societies out there and now we want to be part of the community yeah you know i mean so now let's now jump into the community aspect like what did what are they doing well in terms of building community and why is it so important to build community nowadays so what they're doing well with the community is one um you know i think this is something you talked about you don't need you don't need uh so many followers you don't need a million billion followers you don't need a bill a million billion subscribers or anything all you need is like this idea of having 1 000 or so true fans and really that's what they're doing with the with the bronco nation establishing that small community of people that are loyal that will support uh the company the product and that will buy the product um and so that is what they're kind of building with the with the nation uh bronco nation and then they have this new thing they introduce called bronco off rodeo it's like uh it's like a outdoor it's like a set of trails that they want people with broncos to go on to explore using the bronco and what's very interesting going back to branding and logo is that they have a logo for the bronco nation they have a logo for bronco road off rodeo and the logo for the bronco off rodeo it says established in 2021 and the craziest thing about that is that when it comes to logo design you never put establish in there unless one it's been established right and there's some sort of some sort of history to it but these guys jump in and they're like hey we're gonna say establish 2021 and what's interesting from the podcast is that if you look at the history of the bronco it's always been reacting to the market it's like oh this is what's happening in the world around us we're going to try to adapt to it this is what's happening here we're you know we got to be a little bit more fuel efficient okay let's cut out the bronco for now right but now bronco's taking more of an active role they're like okay look we're going to establish this we're going to establish it now 2021 and we're going to move it forward and they have a lot of hopes in it by putting established 2021 in there so that really caught my eye that's that's something i didn't think about just to touch on the proactive rather than reactive approach that's i would say that's the same reason they came out with three at the same time yeah right so look we're gonna go all in and we're going to reach the people that just want to go off-road we're going to reach the people that work yep no no the sport is the the actual city car well the the sport is the introduction so with the two-door the two-door is the one like hey this is the original to the the loyal fans the people that have had it since the 60s 70s that's for you four-door is like all right this is a big one this is like even even more uh wild than the two-door and then the sport is that like hey look if you're interested in going outdoors like but you can't commit to it it is for you too right and so it's the same thing we're like realizing look in the past and that's another like again understanding your own history allows you to be proactive right and so that's another advantage ford has is they have this rich history and they can dive into they can tap into the lessons that they've learned in the past so they've learned that look in the past we've been reactive and that may be one of the reasons why the bronco ended up falling off right if we can be proactive with this and attack all the things that we need to attack at once maybe we can cement our place uh for good this time yeah yeah exactly um the other thing i wanted to touch on in terms of community is that nowadays i personally believe that you can't just have a good product right for example when i buy an apple iphone without like not formally but i essentially become part of the apple community yeah right i can talk to people that have iphones and we're on we're on the similar wavelength we're both sophisticated we're about smart we're both into like taking pictures we're both rich both yeah we're balling saying like if i have a macbook same thing right there's certain perceptions people have with these products and then what ford has done a really good job is formalizing look you're actually part of this community and this is we're going to call it what it is this is a community like we love going off-road and they've made it accessible for everyone right there's that yearly fee which goes back into that concept of the the thousand true fans right ford has way more than a thousand true loyal fans for the bronco like yeah and so about 7 000 already yeah so like a thousand is like for the individual right the concept is like if you're trying to build an individual brand some people think that you need millions billions of people to follow you for it to be sustainable all you really need is a thousand people that are willing to pay a hundred dollars a year yeah right and and that's how you know that you what you're trying to do is sustainable so what ford has done and this goes into the concept of testing your product too right when they released it they're reserving their products too and that's tesla has done a really great job with that you got to put a thousand dollar deposit down to book your teslas and then that gives them enough cash to actually start working on your products but at the same time it also builds up the hype and you know that these people are willing to part with their money they're not just liking it on facebook on twitter yeah exactly right and so with the the new bronco that they're launching now ford knows that these people are serious they are actually true loyal fans and uh allowing a platform for more people to join this community and really monetizing this community as well is is a very smart move and that actually allows us to pivot into kind of the next part which is kind of talking about what they can be doing uh going forward right yeah yeah we talked about ideas ideas we had man bronco nation the idea of ronco nation i just had i just had a few a few great ideas that it just got me hyped you know i was like man i want to be part of bronco nation um do you have any ideas that uh that came to your mind yeah so i i thought it would be cool if there would be uh and i don't know how it works but like if there's an app and every time you go on a trail you can log it or even better your car is already part of this bronco nation thing and it'll log the trails you've been on and all the off-road experience you have and it'll give you points for that yeah i think that'd be really cool so you can keep track of how how wild you are not only you can keep track of how wild you are but if they can introduce something like how apple watch users kind of have a competition going with with other apple one users you get a notification of the last beating yeah like he's been on like i don't know like five extra miles of a trail than you have or something you know like something like that um yeah developing a competition between bronco users um and actually that reminds me of another idea that i had was like you know we always think of putting miles on a car or a vehicle as a bad thing but what if they can flip the narrative on that right what if they can flip the narrative on mileage being a bad thing and turn it into a good thing like hey this bronco has been through a lot like yeah yeah you deserve like like good things out of it because um you know they can have special rewards yeah yeah that's smart mileage right and that just totally changed the narrative on their on on mileage because everyone's like oh this car has this many mileage it's not that good price depreciates whatever yeah but you know you can't do anything with mileage all you can do is build it up so might as well use it to your advantage and develop a system out of that um so forward if you're listening you know that might be good if you're a decision maker at ford these ideas are free yeah but just uh you know if you're using them just give us a shout out yeah um the other thing uh is since you're paying this yearly fee right for the bronco nation i think it would be incredibly awesome if included in this fee you drop off your bronco on friday and you have a trip planned for saturday so you drop it off at a dealer and they get your trip off-road ready i mean they get your car off-road ready and so what that means could be like they check the oil they check your tires make sure the air pressure is good your spare is all ready to go and they maybe even they give you a complimentary water bottle with the ford logo and they give you like a little um like little food ration supplies you know i mean i think having that where like part of since you're part of the bronco nation we're gonna get your bronco ready yeah uh for the off-road and i think that would be really awesome and i think that's one of the things that you can do to show your members that you actually care and you want them to actually be going off-road and yeah and these are points where that's probably a good place where you can cash out those points right so if you have a lot of bronco points you can kind of get the little rewards that they have yeah and that kind of cash out on some oil change tire rotation alignment and stuff yeah yeah if you pull up with a ford dealership which are like everywhere ubiquitous yeah exactly and and that's the other thing like nowadays like the dealership model is like look at tesla's model like they don't have showrooms like the same way we like ford has right right they have you can book your car like online like sure you have these places you can go test out cars but it's not as land intensive and all this stuff so you have this space and they got to get creative with how they use this space and they have the people as well and if they can pivot like like i know that's your word of the month if they can pivot and figure out how to use these assets in this new direction that they're going then i think they really have something good that they can capitalize on another thing i was thinking they can offer in terms of people who are subscribed to bronco nation is one of the things i was thinking about is like i would love to be an outdoors person but i'm not right compared to some of the people that i know i am nowhere near right but the thing about bronco is if they're talking about empowering people to be outside are be outdoors education's a big part of that you know you got to educate people how to what it takes to be outside and if they can have like paid or instruction like you know if you're part of the bronco nation and you you get access to exclusive access to like educational instruction on you know things about being outside educational instructions on how to maintain your bronco if you know whatever happens like you go into a ditch and your suspensions are off or educate people on you know how to maintain it on a day-to-day versus week-to-week month-to-month year-to-year type of thing that not only gives me the education to take care of it but it also empowers me to go to these meets with other people right now i have something to talk about yeah that's another thing like i was like i love to be part of bronco nation i love to get the shirt and everything but like show up to a meeting and like i don't know what i'm talking about you know so like if they if they allow me to like if they empower me to be able to go to those man that would be sweet that's yeah coming back to the concept of they have all these dealerships they can use these dealerships as places to train people and show people how to use their cars and and really flip their model a little bit the other thing i know we discussed uh was let's talk about strategic partnerships that would be really awesome to see yeah um i'll go first because i'm really excited about this one but yeah go over it i i so a couple weeks ago i went up to uh up northern michigan right and we rented out like a house and it was nice it was a good experience and i took my ford explorer with me and that was like you know took care of all the needs we had but i was just thinking after like having a bronco there would have been 10 times more fun so we booked that place on airbnb and so i'm thinking what if ford partnered with airbnb or some of these resorts that have these uh houses or cabins and they set it up so that when you get your house keys you also get the keys to one or two broncos that come with the house so you can take your you can take your honda odyssey your minivan up there and then when you're there you have three four drivers you guys can all have fun on the broncos yeah but i mean like you have these trails around and you can enjoy uh and in the winter months you can i'm sure like uh the ford bronco will have some pretty cool winter features as well but i just think that would be incredibly awesome where i can like you know i can take literally we can take like a a bus up there and when we get there we have these vehicles ready yeah to actually and i think that can be it doesn't necessarily have to be airbnb that they partner with it could be uh i know there's like this car rental company where any of the car rental cars really so like hurts or uh yeah carvana is a good one that's uh to buy cars but i'm sure they can figure something out um but like hertz or enterprise or or one of these companies if they just bought a bunch of broncos and they said they partnered with the airbnbs and they were like hey look we'll get you guys these broncos um yeah and like you have just make sure you fill up the tank at the end of the day or something like that like that would be so awesome like i would i would i'm ready to go right now if if i know there's a bronco waiting for me you know what i mean so that's a wrong way exactly i was thinking about some strategic partnership they could potentially do not really super well thought out but like if they could partner i mean their whole thing is being out there in the wild if they can partner with outdoor companies like wilderness companies like patagonia l.l bean you know north face stuff like that and you know for whatever reason if you have people that um from there they can even bring them in for the education things that we talked about or even provide uh resources in the broncos right so like you know how you have like the passenger seats backseat pouch you know information stuff like that yeah if they have that information coming from patagonia or north face then you know it's legit hold up hold up hold up it's not ford making outdoor like gear it's patagonia that's making outdoor gear right so yeah yeah check this check this you know how they have uh like they have to have like cloth on the seats right yeah i mean what if one of the trims yeah yeah what if like on the like higher trims or whatever like it was like a patagonia seat oh man [Laughter] you know i mean that'd be like that'd be really sick that would be nice if i was super into outdoors and like the more we talk about it the more i'm getting into it but like i would definitely be willing to pay the money to have that for sure sure um and then the other thing i was thinking is like that could be part of your rewards program too where uh if you get to like a thousand miles on the trail you get like a columbia or north face jacket right just to have or it could be one of those things that you get as part of your like bronco nation membership like hey look you're going to be in the wilderness these are some clothes to you're going to need some warm clothes to get in those climates yeah like this should have like with your bronco if it just in the like in one of the storage compartments it came with an extra jacket something like that you know what i mean like that's something that could come in handy yeah yeah and so i think that would be really cool to see if they could work something out like that um what else did we have we were talking about recurring revenue as well yeah or ads let's talk about ads first then we'll talk about recurring revenue so we sort of talked about recurring oh yeah a little bit other ideas yeah let's talk about ads a lot of ways you could go um one of them was mentioned in the podcast i really think they should bring that advertisement back uh that podcast with a hot air balloon do the same thing yeah like you know just like but now it's ford's uh ford sponsored or like ford approved you know because remember but very wise the reason that campaign was so good was because like ford didn't approve of it and they still did it anyway i think that plays into the whole bronco so go ahead if you're listening and you don't know what the what the commercial we're talking about so apparently this is from the podcast but fort bronco ran a commercial where they would have like a hot air balloon that's like painted like a light bulb or something uh it would fly across america and the commercial was about trying to take uh trying to get to wherever that hot air balloon is going to land and pick up the person in the hot air balloon and the commercial was like how are we going to do that we're going to use bronco we're going to use a ford bronco because it allows us to get there literally anywhere so at one moment you're following it on the highway and then suddenly it veers off some you know in another direction and so like you got to get you got to take your fourth bronco there and they show it doing that and so it just like shows you that this bronco can go literally anywhere yeah so so right off the bat like the concept is really that's a good concept as we bring that back now one thing for the listeners that maybe haven't heard the podcast is that when they did this like no one thought like let's let's talk to i forgot who it was but like the the head marketing the head of uh ford at the time like no one thought of bringing it up to the to him and so when he found out in the newspaper that you know ford is doing something he was like what what the heck like shut this down but they continue to anyway and that's what makes it so iconic right yeah and i think that's a good idea the other thing so one thing i was thinking of was with the off-road theme like what if they hit all 50 states except they didn't use a single road so somehow wow like maybe except to fill gas right but like if they made it like at least 48 lower states if they literally just went through and somehow figured out a route where they could go and not touch a single road i think that would be really impressive and it would really show what the what the car can do yeah um go ahead what were you gonna say i was gonna i was gonna bring up your your next thing the other one the apple so uh yeah the apple commercial or the samsung commercial where they were making fun of apple um back in like 2000 i don't know when 2012 2015 or whatever samsung had this commercial where they were making fun of apple users for waiting in line for so long for having just an inferior phone overall and the end of the commercial was like you know switched to a galaxy samsung galaxy so if bronco was bold enough you know to go go through with it they can make a commercial comparing themselves kind of like samsung was to the current uh uh suvs of of of the time that are all about wilderness all about off-road driving so like if they compare themselves to jeep that would be a very can i just can i play the video yeah yeah yeah you want to play the apple video [Music] guess what i just got [Music] you lost your charm [Music] and i'm moving on [Music] i'm gonna find somebody out there that will surrender [Music] yo i love how they touch on everything that's wrong with the uh the iphone right so i the the thing that really got me was the the headphones man yeah like you had to plug in like a thing and then uh so they talk about like or they don't talk about but they show that when it gets wet that's a problem you know i mean so everything that's a problem so i think what they could do is with jeep uh like right off the bat like the door thing right yeah um i don't know what else exactly how else they can explore that but um the main thing with that commercial is that if you're an iphone user you're very familiar with all of those experiences you can be you can choose to you know block them out but you know you're familiar with them the other thing is if you aren't familiar with them that problem or those problems that are highlighted will always stick in your head and every time you encounter it again you're gonna think oh man is there something else is there a phone out there that you know can do this better right and so by having this commercial you kind of auto like the idea is like incepted in a way right in your head that like this is a problem and i need to solve it and i'm just waiting for the solution to come out and then boom bronco comes out they're like yeah you know yeah yeah that's what i love about that commercial even though i'm an apple guy i'm not a fan boy in the classical uh definition i guess but i really like apple for a lot of different reasons and not just a fanboy yeah so the last thing that i wanted to touch on is just a thought process that we would have if we were in the seats of ford like how we would be approaching problems and then what's one decision you'd make if you were the decision maker for like if you were ford's head of marketing or like for the broncos specifically if you were the the director like what is the one decision you would make sure that has to happen because you know like with all these ideas there's all these different resources issues and all the uh there's constraints you have right and so realistically you may be only able to get like maybe one idea off the ground right so if there was only one idea you got off the ground what would that be do you have one that comes to your head right away yeah so i think let's start with the thought process that i would have and and really it would be like how can we make the process of getting outdoors as simple as possible right and based on that i think that's what ford has to focus on with this bronco like not just how do we create a vehicle that's good for the outdoors but how do we make sure that we have a whole outdoor ecosystem per se right like where anytime you think of outdoors you think of the fort bronco not just you know okay now i need a car but like hey i'm going here like this is the three or four things and ford bronco has you taken care of on all those things so i think um what i would be thinking and the second thing that i think car companies nowadays really need to think about moving forward is like how can we provide value to the customer outside of taking them from point a to point b and how can we monetize on that value on a monthly basis right so it's not like car companies in the past you'd make one car and it'd last you like five ten years and then you kind of upgrade now we have the leasing model we're up really every two years but i think customers are getting with uber and and uh what lyft and these other things they're getting more used to like maybe not even having a car right so in that environment how do you create an ecosystem that provides value to the customer on a daily basis and how do you monetize that on a monthly basis right so if we see companies like microsoft they've taken their product if you remember the old windows operating system and microsoft excel word all this stuff it used to come in like a cd and you had to buy like windows 975 right 365 is now right so now you have windows 365 microsoft 365 whatever it is office 365 and it just updates automatically for you same thing with adobe creative cloud where if you wanted to photoshop in the past it was like 300 bucks and it would last you for like a year and then the next one would come out you had to pay 300 bucks again now you just pay 50 bucks a month and you anytime they update you got it right so how does a car company pivot to that model and that's what they have to start thinking about and for me so if i'm in the driver's seat i think the one thing that really shouldn't take a lot of money uh in comparison to some of the other things we mentioned is that bronco nation experience of uh teaching people how to get outdoors and also providing them uh like the tune-ups and like oil changes and like all the things that they need to go outdoors like making sure their car is ready and that the the driver is ready and they know how to get outdoors i think that's the one thing if i had to pick that i would focus my energies on yeah about you i think i honestly i was thinking about the exact same thing i think one thing i'd like to add to that is they have the the everyone's they have they have the market for it and what i mean by that is people are excited to be outside now right covered really changed people's perspective on like how they live their lives and like people are just itching to be outside they've got bikes they want to know about trails they just want to be outside now they and so they're basically primed to that um education or their prime to that learning experience and so i think if they can capitalize on that that would be those are the decisions they need to be making about how to capitalize on that and like you said all about uh giving people the tools so yeah i'm excited i'm excited to see what they are what they'll come out with yeah i am very excited to keep following this journey the podcast and uh actually my dad we booked a bronco so i'm excited to actually drive it whenever whenever we get it so yeah um let me know i'm interested to see uh and i'm sure i've gone on you're also interested to see like what the audience what you all think about the ford bronco and how the advertising and marketing how has it impacted you have you thought about anything is it exciting or do you not care what stood out to you what you know let us know what you guys think and the other thing is moving forward we want to know which brands we should focus on right so if there's a certain brand that speaks to you or you have a distaste towards let us know and we can kind of yeah like let let us look into it and we'll deep dive yeah let us deep dive in and find out what's driving that yeah no popular or unpopular exactly right so thank you all for joining i know this went uh about an hour long which is double what we had planned initially but um i definitely uh it was an interesting episode right so yeah thank you alumni for joining yeah thank you for having me uh i got excited to talk about it so i was like i'm on board with this let's do it yeah we will see you all next month we'll be releasing this stuff on a monthly basis so thank you guys for joining see you guys next month