Word: astone
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Some publicity-hungry firms pay for screen time. But most product placement works on barter. For example, Ford provided several Aston Martins (for Bond), Jaguars (for the bad guy, Zao), Thunderbirds (for Jinx), Range Rovers (for utility vehicles), spare parts and technical help. That in-kind contribution saved EON millions in production costs. "The value that we got far exceeded the cash they could give us," Wilson says. In return, Ford will get invaluable screen time for its vehicles. The carmaker will also spend millions in movie tie-in promos, which will allow the distributors of Die Another...
...year. Analysts hailed Fields as the next Carlos Ghosn--the executive who led Nissan's dramatic turnaround. Fields' bosses at Ford, which owns a controlling stake in Mazda, were so impressed that they handed him a bigger job: turbocharging Ford's troubled Premier Automotive Group (PAG), made up of Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo...
...office by 6 a.m. and closes his days with 10 p.m. weight lifting and a two-mile run. He likes to drive fast too. At Mazda he skipped the chauffeur service in favor of a red RX-7 sports car. At PAG, though, he says he will forgo the Aston Martin: "We need to look for every efficiency, and driving an Aston wouldn't set a good example...
...turnaround fell to Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Fields, 41, the Harvard M.B.A. who revamped Mazda's lineup with models like his red RX-7 sport coupe. Last month Ford, which controls Mazda, asked Fields to work his magic on its lagging Premier Automotive Group, which makes Volvos, Jaguars, Aston Martins and Land Rovers...
...Aston Martin, James Bond's favorite sports car, currently starts at $150,000 but is planning an "entry level" model - at $92,000. As for the other PAG marques, Jaguar turned a profit of $100 million last year, its first since Ford acquired it in 1989, and sales are improving. Volvo, the family car of choice, made $700 million and remains the group's workhorse. Indeed, Ford is a quintessential American company that grew huge by creating the mass automobile market. Ironically, its future now rests in large part with a handful of low-volume, élitist cars made...