What were they thinking?

1982 Ford Promo - California Highway Patrol Special Service Mustang Ad
Originally uploaded by ssp.vortech

One of the best ways to start looking at the cultural narrative on a brand is to go back through all of its communication and look at the threads that lay there.

I did just that on Mustang this morning. Of course Mustang is odd in that its story runs much deeper than anything it's ever said... it's as much an icon of America as it is an American icon and that's as much down to Bullit, to racing, to father and son driveway moments and things like Farrah and Charlie's Angels as it is the advertising. And it's just as well. Because the ads spent decades talking about room for dogs, shagpile carpet and the fact that the dashboard is badded and the seats were vinyl.

But there were some threads in there. Basically Mustang ran the Smirnoff strategy for a long, long time, Mustang is transformational - it allows you to cast off your dowdy accountant self and embrace your uninhibited, sexy self.

Smirnoff does it by making you so drunk that you don't care (the world looks different through the bottom of a bottle) Mustang did it by making you feel so cool you took on a new persona.

The other story in there was that this release was the attainment of the dream. Mustang was about escape for a very long time. Whic h makes sense when you think that the original buyers were in a buttoned up world where self expression was frowned upon.

There was a lot about heritage too. About how each generation was related to the previous generation (and how it had improved). This communication split into two real camps. There was 'approval from a father figure' in which a new Mustang pulls up alongside an old Mustang and the older driver passes positive comment. And there was trans-generational transfer in which a father passes on the feeling of a Mustang to his son. I found the latter more powerful.

Best of all though was the MadMen style sexism of the times.

"Should a single gal buy a 1968 Mustang? Sure - it's a sports car she can afford even on her secretary's salary"

Or the woman who begins her test-drive with the words

"I really should be in the kitchen"

Hilarious but all a part of the legend. Mustang it seems has always been an invitation to show your sexier side --- what that means in a world full of college jazz mags, explicit blogs, high street sex shops, hardcore downloads and teen hypersexuality is the big challenge.

But it's great to be thinking about something that has real cultural currency than trying to work out something new to say about a new watermelon flavored yellow fat.