• by Karl Greenberg , May 15, 2007

Ford's Lincoln and Mercury divisions have made a 12-month commitment to Specific Media, an Irvine, Calif.-based ad network that combines demographic data with behavior. Ford will target consumers with initiatives promoting vehicles like the Lincoln MKX, MKZ and Mercury Mariner.

Tim Vanderhook, CEO, co-founder and president, says the agency has been working with Ford since last year.

"We are partnering with Team Detroit [Ford's agency group, comprising Y&R, JWT, Wunderman, Ogilvy and GroupM]. This partnership is about driving efficiency in online ad dollars; a lot of marketers now are saying 'we want to target people instead of content'," he says.

He explained that Specific Media's métier involves delivering ads not by matching general demographic types to Web sites, but by studying online behavior and delivering media buys based on where different demographics actually spend their time.

"We have cookie data on 95% of U.S. users--we can tell if one is male or female, the types of content you have been consuming. The way traditional ads are bought and sold involves studying composition reports, seeing what Web sites acquire the highest percentage of that target audience"--meaning, he says, that advertisers really end up targeting everyone who visits a given site versus, say, the six out of ten they really want to reach.

"We are involved with a host of different campaigns, and we will be working with them throughout the year coming up on many launches."

Lincoln launched its current brand mantra, "Reach Higher," as part of its "Dreams" campaign last fall. And Lincoln recently launched an online campaign on portals like Yahoo! featuring interactive ads that let consumers stay at the host Web site while interacting with the Lincoln content.

In April, Mercury sales were down 14.2%, while Lincoln, benefiting from a new crossover, MKX, saw sales increase 6.9%.