AIM: FOR THE "NEXT BIG THING!"

Creating a buzz

Ford charges a team of designers from outside the auto industry with finding the Next Big Thing

February 12, 2007

BY TAMARA AUDI

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

IRVINE, CALIF.

The spy wore flip-flops.

And a small earring, frayed jeans and a plain yellow shirt. Aside from his black BMW, there was nothing remotely spy-like about Ben Siebert, who at 26 and with shaggy dark-blond hair, seems the epitome of a certain slice of southern California: young and at ease.

But even more surprising than Siebert's job is the identity of his employer, Ford Motor Co., which at age 103, is the epitome of a certain slice of upper Midwest industry: old and unsteady.

As odd as the pairing may seem, if ever Ford needed a guy like Siebert, it is probably now. He is a culture spy, figuring out for the automaker -- through means scientific and, well, less so -- where society is heading and what kind of car it might want to drive.

Siebert is among the oddest employees at Ford, part of a small, self-described A-team of nonconformist designers who, by design, are not automotive designers. They are trend-spotters, paid to find the Next Big Thing, and shake the stodgiest of executives awake to face it. The team lured designers from outside industries such as furniture and retail, and has a direct line to J Mays, Ford's top designer and chief product strategist.

Building others' confidence

At a time when the carmaker has suffered the worst losses in its history, it is difficult to measure -- and easy to question -- the value of such a dreamy California venture. But the five-person team has created, or had a role in producing, some of Ford's most buzz-worthy concepts -- including the Ford 427, the Bronco, the Fairlane, the Interceptor and the Lincoln MKS.

But of all the team's recent projects, only the Fairlane has been scheduled for production. "Ford would love to produce some of these cars, but they probably don't fit into the financial picture now," said John Wolkonowicz, senior analyst for Global Insight.

But Wolkonowicz and others say Ford must continue to promote its creative, fanciful side if it is to convince Wall Street, Ford employees and consumers that it has a viable, even bright, future. "That kind of work builds excitement, and they can't afford to stop developing this excitement," he said.

There is little doubt Ford is in desperate need of the MySpace generation, even if it has to put them on its payroll. Which, it turns out, it has. The designers on the team are all in their mid-20s and early 30s, except for team leader Jackson Wang, who is 41 and a former designer for Hallmark and Neiman Marcus.

The team's unconventional work created buzz in the auto design community.

Most talk centered on the team's immersion experiments. The idea was to get Ford executives out of the Detroit bubble and into the lives of regular people, as a way to figure out how to get those people into Ford vehicles.

But there was a catch: The regular people were to be from the future. Using census tracking data and marketing trends, the Brand Imaging Group created future homes and families -- and hired people to portray them in cities on the East Coast. For one day, Ford executives lived with these families, eating and traveling in an imaginary future world.

An outsider gets in

The group was supposed to be operating under the radar, if not in secret.

The first reaction of Jennifer Flake, the team's director, when asked about the team's existence was, "How did you hear about that?" The second was to reluctantly permit an outsider to have lunch with them, an experience not unlike sitting with the precociously smart-but-cool kids in high school, the ones who were already listening to R.E.M. when you were still listening to Huey Lewis and the News.

Around a few outdoor tables at the Laguna Beach taco stand, team members kicked off with an appraisal of the graphics on cigarette boxes (the ones in Asia are cooler, apparently). But then a cluster of Harleys roared by, and as soon as the taco stand was quiet again, the conversation turned to the retro glamour of biker culture, and how that might be incorporated into cars.

"It's crazy what we think about," Wang said later, "but nobody else thinks about this stuff."

Mays started the team in 1998 with an unusual mandate: "To stir up a little trouble," explained Flake -- who by day is a Ford spokeswoman but whose other, less public job is to present the team's ideas to Ford execs, dressed as she is in a far more corporate, less flip-floppy look.

One of the team's most concrete accomplishments is, almost literally, the nose on Ford's face: the chrome, three-bar grill on the front of its newest sedans. The team was trying to find a way to communicate its message of boldness and strength across vehicle lines.

"The question was, how do you distill toughness into a vehicle?" Flake explained. They went to the Mustang for inspiration, drawing from the vehicle's brawny, American image. After several brainstorming sessions, they came up with the simple, strong, horizontal three-bar grille.

How concepts are born

The team's office is a loft above Ford's advance design studio. It's a brightly colored, slightly messy oasis of pop culture and music. It has the look and feel of a dorm room. A huge collection of CDs is stacked in one corner, David Bowie music fills the space. There is a foosball table; the staff meets around a ping-pong table instead of a regular boardroom table. Scooters are leaned against a wall, a beat-up sofa and chairs make a small lounge. Pages torn out of popular magazines with headshots of celebrities are stuck on poster board throughout, and three-dimensional sculptures of past projects lie in corners, like a senior thesis gone haywire.

The team is working on about 12 projects -- from advising on design already in the pipeline, to identifying an emerging trend and inspiring a concept vehicle around it.

In 2002, after census data showed a trend toward urban living, the team came up with the concept of "safe on wheels" -- a compact fortress of a vehicle to make its driver feel protected in the sketchiest of neighborhoods.

The team produced a video set to the music of the White Stripes, with scenes from rough-looking streets. With the team's input and supervision, Ford produced a bullet-proof, nearly windowless concept car at the 2005 Detroit auto show with a handle you'd find on a safe, and an interior that turns into a sanctuary-like lounge. The vehicle was unfortunately named SYNus (pronounced Sin-U-ous, though everyone understandably called it Sinus).

All the expected nasal-related jokes were made -- "Ford must have had a collective head cold when they came up with the name for this one" Automobile Magazine quipped -- but the vehicle was touted by other reviewers as "bold" and, most important for Ford, surprising.

Peter Horbury, Ford's executive director of design for North America, speaks frequently about marketing the Mercury brand as "metro cool" -- a concept that came, in part, from the team's prediction that urban living was going to be an important trend for automakers.

Flake, whose job it is to keep the team's projects secret, will say only that much of Ford's future is about the compact car, and the projected migration to cities -- bringing the SYNus back into focus.

"In Detroit, in the past, we were a little too myopic," Flake said.

So Ford bought itself a new, younger set of eyes on the edge of the country, where, just maybe, there's a better view of the future.

Contact TAMARA AUDI at 313-222-6582 or audi@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.