From a story on Ford Motor company in today’s NYT (story by Claire Atkinson):
Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys, a consumer loyalty measurement firm in New York, said that Ford’s biggest marketing deficit is simply standing for something. “There is a brand association test. If I said Mercedes, you’re likely to say luxury; Volvo: safety; Toyota: reliability. With Ford, you’re likely to hear the sound ummm,” he said. “That is the sound of a brand dying.”
Mediated 
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Methinks he may have not asked the occupiers of flyover country! Sounds like responses from the coasts and big cities. I will bet “FORD” will be around a lot longer than Robert Passikoff and his progeny.
Confession: I drive a hybrid Escape and my wife drives an Edge.
That could be; unfortunately for Ford there are not so many people in flyover country as there used to be (percentage-wise at least). But I’d say the “Dodge ‘Ram Tough'” (using a U.S. auto-maker example) brand image is much stronger. I have no opinion about actual product quality!
Brand image can certainly vary, however. The South Africans I know used to refer to Ford as “found on road dead” because apparently the locally made Ford vehicles there were notoriously unreliable.
While on the subject of automakers, I note this post on VW moving HQ from Detroit to Virginia:
Not the Big Three but …