1a. Explore Ford’s corporate site (corporate.ford.com) to answer this: Identify and describe (in 1-2 sentences) three elements, communicated by Ford, that help the company seem trustworthy. Elements can be varied in nature, e.g. projects, people, ideals, etc. For each element, give the specific source URL from the Ford corporate site.
1b. Explore Ford’s commercial (ford.com) site and/or Ford’s social media to answer this: Using this age list and your judgement, assign a 1-4 rank to each generation that Ford is most-toleast likely targeting.
o Teens/ Gen Z/ iGeneration (born ≈ 2001+)
o Millennials/Gen Y (born ≈ 1980-2000)
o Gen X (born ≈ 1965-1980)
o Baby Boomers (born ≈ 1944-1964)
1c. Describe (in 1-2 sentences) two components of Ford’s communications (or lack there of) that support your conclusions for 1b.
2. Briefly summarize the outlook and demand in the US car and automobile manufacturing industry.
o BRG > INDUSTRY > Industry and Market Research
3. Regarding US consumers’ perceptions of auto brands, for domestic and foreign brands, is it helpful for automotive makers to communicate that their vehicles are manufactured in America? Why or why not?
o BRG > PEOPLE > Consumers
4. Scholarly articles and trade articles can both be very helpful. This database is the top resource listed on both of the pages on the Business Research Guide.
o BRG > News > Databases of News & Trade Articles
o BRG > Academic Articles
4a. Using the appropriate database, do a keyword search for consumer.
• How many results are there?
• When you add trust to search for consumer AND trust, how many results are there?
• When you add purchas* (the asterisk finds every ending to a word) to search for consumer AND trust AND purchas* how many results are there?
4b. Using the appropriate database, do a keyword search for Ford.
• How many results are there?
• In the results, look at Source Types on the left Refine menu. How many results are from Academic Journals, and how many are from Trade Publications?
4c. Briefly describe how you think academic articles (AKA scholarly or peer-reviewed) could be helpful for this assignment.
4d. Briefly describe how you think trade articles (from a trade magazine or trade journal) could be helpful for this assignment.