Ford’s September Swoon; Reuters Errs, While the Biggest Boycott Never Reported Continues Taking Its Toll
Here’s what Reuters said about Ford’s September US performance, compared to what Ford’s PR release actually said:
Oops.
Much more important, the saddest story almost never told by Old Media continues to play out.
The American Family Association began a boycott of Ford in March of 2006 over what it considers to be the company’s overt pro-homosexual activism and support of other politically-correct causes.
Is the boycott having an effect? Here is Ford’s sales performance in the US since then (most of the numbers are from an AFA spreadsheet; the numbers conform to my recall of what the company has reported during the period involved:
The company’s sales performance has been consistently at least 10% worse than its major rivals during the period of the boycott. Now it’s getting worse (see the August comparison here about 2/3 of the way through the link; Ford trailed the average of the rest of the pack by 16%). Could that be because ever more people (750,000 and counting) are participating in the boycott? In previous posts, I have estimated that at least 10 million to 15 million are actually participating in the boycott by the time you add up AFA’s 3.2 million members, their family and extended-family members, influenced friends and relatives, and the impact of other participating organizations.
I personally wish Don Wildmon’s crowd hadn’t declared the boycott, because too many good people are getting hurt. But the fact is he did, and Ford looks like it would rather go under than acknowledge its probable impact. If this were still Henry Ford’s private empire, you could perhaps defend the company’s apparent willingness to commit corporate suicide (I still wouldn’t, because you have employees, their families, suppliers, and the communities to consider). But Ford is a publicly owned company, and its duty is try to get its shareholders the best possible return on their investment within the law. They’re not doing that, while traditional media refuse to explore the boycott’s likely growing impact.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org and Wide Open.
UPDATE: GM’s September sales were up 0.3% (via e-mail; later link); Toyota – Down 4%; Honda – up 9%.
Tom;
The sad aspect about the whole homosexual issue is that Ford is not looking at any scientific data concerning this illness; they are only reacting out of either fear or sensation. If we could get beyond the political rhetoric that the homosexual agenda furthers maybe Ford could contribute money to solving the problem rather than keeping people trapped in a destructive lifestyle.
If the price of Ford’s poor choice is the loss of the company, then so be it, it will be absorbed into the market. Thanks goodness that this is the United States and those workers and ancillary services will eventually recover. Nevertheless, at least the stand is taken that the collective wisdom of our faiths and current scientific data and research will prevail over the propaganda.
Comment by Brian — October 2, 2007 @ 2:14 pm
#1, I never thought Ford would hold out this long. It seems that either they’re believing their own BS that AFA doesn’t matter, that they think they can cut off 10%-15% of their market and survive (but at a terrible cost to shareholders), or they don’t care if the company goes down.
The fact that Ford is family-owned with a separate class of stock that has disproportionate voting rights, ensuring family control even though the family owns a lot less than 50% (like the, ahem NY Times), means that if the non-family shareholders aren’t happy, it’s too bad, so sad.
Comment by TBlumer — October 2, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
Interesting, my comments as well as Jeff Coryell’s off of Wide Open concerning this posting. Does the Plain Dealer have a policy to pull comments they do not like? This is not direct toward you, I am just curious.
Comment by Brian — October 2, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
Sorry, I should have read my comments twice before sending.
Comment by Brian — October 2, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
#3, I brought it to their attention. Nobody seems to know what happened. In theory any reader can hit the alert button (I think).
Comment by TBlumer — October 2, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
A good way to bring pressure on large public companies like Ford, beyond the already successful boycot, is to post on their investor message boards. One example is, on Yahoo Finance each stock has a discussion area where investors discuss the stock. Yahoo is probably the most popular. These discussion boards are not controlled by the company who’s stock is being discussed. Hence, they can’t edit the comments. Additionally, potential investors will look at the discussions before buying in order to get details that are not in the annual report. A large boycot that is sapping the strength of sales is something that potential buyers are looking to uncover there, and it could cause them to invest elsewhere. So, any boycot should be preceded and followed by a voluminous posting campain at the third party discussion boards. Fat cat CEOs and CFOs read these boards as well. So they will see what is being posted about their precious stock!
Comment by Tim — October 3, 2007 @ 10:11 am
In fact, as soon as I publish these comments, I am on my way to the yahoo finance boards to publicize the boycot! You should too.
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/mb/FORD
Tim
Comment by Tim — October 3, 2007 @ 10:15 am
Correction!
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/mb/F
Comment by Tim — October 3, 2007 @ 12:58 pm