CISCO'S GONE

The Detroit News and about every other automobile industry website on the planet is reporting that Cisco Codina, Ford Motor Company’s (F) head honcho of North American Sales and Marketing is gone, effective November 1, 2007.

Codina claims it is just a scheduled retirement after a long thirty years of service. (He promised his wife, after all)

The Detroit News, on the other hand, implies that Cisco’s being shown the door because his weak marketing operation has failed to stem FoMoCo’s catastrophic ten year plunge in market share:

"The Detroit News first reported that Codina was on the hot seat in April after the company missed its first quarter sales targets. Since then, Ford's decade-long decline in domestic market share has slowed, but still shrank to its lowest ever in August -- just 14.4 percent, compared with 22 percent five years ago."

Of course Cisco’s problems did not start back in April. As Speedzzter blogged back in 2006:

"Automotive News reported on June 29, 2006, that Cisco Codina, Ford group vice president of North America marketing, sales and service, is complaining Chrysler's suggestion of an employee discount plan in July has weakened sales during the last couple of weeks in June."

"Codina said 'It's unbelievable that someone would begin talking about next month's incentives in the middle of the month. Go figure.'"

'Cisco, of course, protests a little too much."

"Obviously, the U.S. consumer is conditioned to summer-time "fire sales" from the Detroit 3. Moreover, given the dramatic declines in truck and SUV sales as well as increasing general economic impact of sustained higher fuel prices and FoMoCo's relatively weak position in high m.p.g. vehicles (No tiny "B car" in the U.S. market, the aging Focus and Ranger forced to carry Ford against newer competition, no light diesels, no economy engine option for Mustang, limited hybrid capacity, Ford's failure to use currently-available technology to increase V8 fuel efficiency, etc.), consumers fully and reasonably expect escalation in the incentive wars this year."

[Virtually none of these product-side problems have been fixed. Cisco’s results would have been even worse had it not been for the modest success of FoMoCo’s new crossovers]

Codina also sometimes said some dumb things that could raise the ire of consumers. For example, in 2006 Cisco ineloquently dumped on the "employee pricing" gimmick:

"Cisco saves special hostility for treating ordinary customers as well as the ever-shrinking group of Ford employees: ‘I don't think employee discounts are good . . . Last time we were dragged into it. Right now, at this point in time, we have no intention of doing employee pricing. It’s very disruptive.’"

With comments like that, consumers properly stayed the sidelines waiting for a "real" deal.

Not that Cisco and his cohorts didn’t try.

Codina implemented Mark Fields’ "Bold Moves" campaign to mixed reviews. Dealers claimed it was too subtle. Moreover, most of the truly "bold" moves seemed to be coming from elsewhere (i.e. GM's Five-Year/100,000 mile warranty and Chrysler’s "lifetime" powertrain warranty).

Later, Codina’s troops corrected course with the more aggressive "Ford Challenge" campaign and the "Swap your Ride" subcomponent. Neither, as of yet, have stemmed the market share decline flow (and are arguably at least FIVE YEARS TOO LATE).

The Detroit News said Codina was "popular" with dealers. Of course except when he was trying to axe some of them. But with FoMoCo’s anti-competitive dealer shrinkage plan now ahead of schedule, perhaps it’s time for the "hatchet man" to step down.

It’s inevitable that someone will compare Codina’s tenure with the meteoric rise of another FoMoCo marketing alum: Jim Press.

Of course, Press bailed out of Ford before Pintos started exploding . . . before the absolutely moronic withdrawal from motorsports of the 1970s . . . before the "energy crisis" . . . before the transmissions slipped out of gear . . . before the Bronco rollover lawsuits . . . before the ignition switches burned . . . before the "always on" cruise control fiasco . . . and before the Explorer/Firestone mess. So Codina's defenders could argue that Press was dealt a better hand.

But while Press had to build Toyota's "Borg Cube" virtually from the ground up (studying and learning from FoMoCo intently as he went), Cisco was spotted Ford's legendary history and cash-in-the-bank nameplates, such as the F-Series, the Thunderbird and the Mustang.

All have declined under Codina's watch. Meanwhile, Toyota basically took over the world.

Press is now rumored to be the $50 million dollar man for the new (for about the third time) Chrysler, after marshaling Toyota’s ballistic rise in the American market and becoming the first non-Japanese board member in Toyota's history. In contrast, Cisco’s getting his "gold watch."

Now that Cisco is riding off into the sunset, he’ll have plenty of time to reflect on how the product side let him down . . . and maybe how his organization let down the product.