• Advertising Age , Wednesday, December 17, 2008 11 AM

Alan Mulally, who joined Ford as an outsider in September 2006 from his CEO post at Boeing "hit the ground running" and has focused the automaker on its core brands -- Ford, Lincoln and Mercury, observers tell Jean Halliday. That's why Ford is only looking for access to $9 billion in bridge financing rather than a bailout, as are General Motors and Chrysler, to survive.

One of his first actions was to meet with the global product-development teams, where he discovered Ford had separate teams and parts, points out Todd Turner, president of CarConcepts. He took Ford from nine different hood latches to one.

He also called for "One Ford," a single global product-development team that will bring versions of Ford's European small cars to the U.S. in 2010. And last fall, he rocked the U.S. industry by hiring Jim Farley away from Toyota Motor Sales USA for the new global post of group VP-marketing and communications. A new ad campaign, themed "Drive One," has significantly improved dealer morale

Read the whole story at Advertising Age »