Bruce Caudill's customers are among the most loyal in the car business. Time and again, they return to his Lincoln-Mercury dealerships in Kent and Akron, Ohio, to buy another Continental, Town Car or Mark VIII.
But while they're among the industry's most loyal, Caudill's Lincoln customers are also among the oldest. Their average age hovers around 60.Caudill has another problem: the Mercury brand - the other half of his product line - is not very well understood by customers who think Mercurys are just camouflaged Fords.
As a result of all this, Caudill and other Lincoln-Mercury dealers find themselves struggling to reverse sagging sales of a product line that needs updating. Total Lincoln-Mercury sales dropped from 684,197 a year in 1985 to 512,129 in 1995.
In response, the Lincoln-Mercury division's parent, Ford Motor Co., is moving to introduce new models to liven up its Lincoln line and to develop Mercury models that aren't mistaken for Fords.
The sales decline was due in large part to the squeeze caused by increasing competition from imports in the luxury segments. From 1991 to 1995, luxury import automakers Mercedes-Benz and Volvo saw their U.S. sales increase by 30 percent. During the same time, BMW sales rose 63 percent.
Besides developing new import-fighting Lincoln-Mercury products, Ford is trying a hot new marketing effort called branding.
Branding a whole lineup of cars by getting customers to associate them with concepts like quality and value can help set an automaker apart from its competitors.
Caudill has played a significant role in the development of Lincoln-Mercury's strategy.
He is serving his second term as chairman of Lincoln-Mercury's 18-member national dealer advisory council - the car company's eyes and ears to the market. The council advises the carmaker on what customers are saying about such things as car styles, models, incentives, prices and colors.
The council helped lead the carmaker toward introducing - gasp! - a sport utility vehicle into the Lincoln lineup. The Navigator, retailing for about $43,000, debuted in July, beginning what Ford President Jac Nasser said is the beginning of a "new era" for Lincoln.
"It's everything you wouldn't expect a Lincoln to be," said Lincoln-Mercury spokesman Joe Koenig.
Caudill said he is very impressed with the aggressively styled Navigator and predicted that car buyers will be, too. While the vehicle is not a high-volume product, its presence in the Lincoln lineup will recast the public perception that Lincolns are only for retirees and grandparents, Caudill predicted.
"(The Navigator) will bring in a whole new set of customers we've never seen in here before," Caudill said.
The object is to bring down the average age of a Lincoln buyer, the company says. It's now 63. The target car buyer for the Navigator is 48, said company spokesman John Csernotta.
In comparison, General Motors' Cadillac division responded to the imports' squeeze by offering the Catera, a smaller, more sporty model aimed particularly at female buyers. Cadillac even advertised its new model using supermodel Cindy Crawford.
But despite Crawford's short-skirted commercials, Ford's Navigator strategy is smarter than that of Cadillac, said industry analyst Michael P. Ward of PaineWebber in New York. He said the sport utility offering will provide more reason for car buyers to buy Lincoln.
Whereas Navigator is a new kind of vehicle for Lincoln, the Catera's best weapon against the imports is mostly just its price, he said.
To further help inject life into a formerly geriatric lineup, Lincoln has revamped its stuffy Town Car and Continental models.