Automaker’s new marketing strategy

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: For most of his career at Ford, engineer Stephen Kozak has just wanted people to know how safe he has helped make the company’s cars and trucks. Now, he has the chance to tell them himself.

Kozak is one of dozens of Ford employees who is appearing in Ford television and Internet advertisements as part of the company’s new “Drive One” campaign, which was formally launched this week on Fox’s American Idol.

“It’s probably the most exciting thing I’ve ever done for the company,” he told The Detroit News. “I know we make the safest cars on the road. Finally, I have an opportunity to tell the world.”

Talking to Kozak, it is clear just how passionate he is about his work at Ford. That passion comes through in the Internet spot he did for Ford’s new retail website driveoneford.com. And that passion is what Ford’s new chief marketing officer, Jim Farley, says will help change the way Americans think about the Blue Oval. As The News first reported, the new ad campaign uses Ford’s own employees to sell its cars and trucks. It also is using real consumers like 22-year-old Amy Hardigree of California.

The premise is simple: Ford gives one of its new cars for one week to a motorist who owns a competing product. After their time is up, they get to give the car to one of their friends. Ford films the exchange, turning the consumers into salespeople.

Hardigree is hardly a typical Ford customer. She is young. She is a woman. She lives in the heart of Toyota country, and she drives a Volkswagen Beetle.

“The only perception I had of Ford was not to drive one,” she said. “Driving one really changed my mind.”

Her friends drive the German imports, but she said they were wowed by features like Sync, the voice-activated communication and entertainment system Ford developed with Microsoft Corp.

Changing the minds of people like Hardigree is more than just a clever advertising ploy for Farley. It is what the whole “Drive One” campaign is all about.