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Ford supremo Tom Gorman says small car success is only "just behind" a successful launch of the new Falcon in the company's 2008 'to do' list.

Speaking at his regularly monthly media briefing, the Ford Australia president conceded that Focus and its light car stablemate Fiesta had significantly underperformed in sales terms in 2007.

With Ford banking on a strong small car presence in the local market ahead of local production of the next-generation Focus in 2010-11, he said success in the small car segment was now "a priority" for the company.

In a record year that has seen the Small car sales volume grow by almost 6 per cent and Light cars almost 10, Fiesta is off over 4 per cent, with the Focus struggling to match 2006's stock-constrained sales levels.

"Fiesta is not as [much] an issue as we see Focus is," Gorman told the Carsales Network.

"Fiesta's a great product -- it does 400-450 a month for us. Ultimately, we would like it to do better but you guys know the strategy there -- we're going to localize [production] in Thailand [more here] and that's going to give us some obvious opportunities under the Free Trade Agreement. I don't think you're going to see a lot of difference in terms of massive volume growth until we get into that space.

"We have a very strong brand building campaign out there with Focus. [But] One of the things we found after sticking with it for two or three months was it wasn't really driving traffic [into dealers]," Gorman admitted.

"This is a lifetime debate -- whether you build the brand or whether you build ads with 'the deal'. What we recognise we haven't done enough of, is the brand and the offer: what is my reason to buy; what is the reason to come in and see Ford today?"

Year-to-date November, Focus sales are down on the same period in 2006. The critically acclaimed car has struggled all year to match Holden's Astra -- also struggling in the sales race -- and segment improvers like Honda's Civic.

Focus' 2007 monthly average sales figure of 1435 units is well behind the top-selling small cars, Toyota's all-conquering Corolla (3971) and Mazda's Mazda3 (2891). In October Focus sold less than 1000 units. In November Mitsubishi's all-new Lancer significantly outsold the Ford.

"We frankly had a very, very tough October [with Focus] but did better volume in November and we're now back in the space we need to be... We're now 1300, 1400, 1500 a month -- but we want to get to 2000," Gorman said.

"There are 26 entrants in this segment. Nobody is going to roll over and make it easy for us and maybe we underestimated the competitive activity. The feedback we've got from our dealers is we have a great product, but we haven't done enough direct comparison of all the content and capability we have vis-a-vis the competitive set," Gorman opined.

The Ford boss says the answer is "more, more, more and bettered and more focussed marketing."

Gorman's exec team and Ford dealers say Focus simply needs to: "get on more consumers shopping lists."

Yet in the face of conceding brand building alone has not worked for Focus, Ford has embarked an admittedly "edgy" branding only campaign to relaunch its Mondeo medium car.

Gorman is confident tactical action will not be needed to fire up the midsizer's sales in what is arguably an almost as competitive marketplace. And one that has not shown the consistent growth of the small car segment. 

"That dog's hunting very well. We're getting great traffic on Mondeo and when we get 'em we'll sell them," Gorman said referring to a supply glitch that saw just 61 Mondeos available for dealers to sell at the start of November, the car's second month on sale.

Indeed, Gorman remains resolutely upbeat.

"Once we come to the launch of Orion we're going to have a very, very young portfolio which is where you want to be in our business. It's taken us a while to get there and transform the business, but we're pretty excited about what we can do next year."

"We don't need to be apologetic for Focus. We need to get behind Focus and build Focus," said the Ford boss.

"I think when people think of Ford as a brand, large cars, SUVs and commercials -- that all fits into their buying pattern… But when it comes to small cars, we're a little too far down the shopping list and that's really what we've been working on

"[With] Small cars people think about Mazda, Honda, they think about Toyota -- we got to get them to think about us. We're still working on it," he said.

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