Word: tiring
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...more than a little nervous," he said in his tentative English, as three female Japanese interpreters in brightly colored suits hovered nearby. Ono offered a sharp contrast to the carefully scripted performance of Ford boss Jac Nasser, who would later pin the blame squarely on Firestone's tires. He was visibly uncomfortable, expressing regret on one hand, denying any tire defect on the other. And his watered-down apology incited a harsh response. Senator Richard Shelby, Alabama Republican, summed up the general sentiment by asking, "What does it take to put a company on notice that perhaps they...
...that weren't bad enough, even Firestone's spin doctors have apparently lost faith in the company; last week, in the wake of the company's refusal to expand the recall to include an additional 1.4 million tires, its p.r. agency, Fleishman-Hillard, quit, reportedly tired of clashing with corporate lawyers. In a statement, Fleishman said it didn't think it could be of further service, refusing to elaborate. "I personally think Firestone is toast," says veteran marketer Jack Trout of Greenwich, Conn., who has previously worked with the company. "It's really a second-tier tire brand with...
...list of Firestone failures goes on and on: it waited nearly a week to advertise the recall and balked at reimbursing customers for replacing Firestone's with rivals' tires; it broke another cardinal rule by failing to own up from the start to all it knows. Just like fast-food chain Jack in the Box, which initially blamed its meat supplier for the deadly outbreak of E. coli in its hamburgers in 1993, Firestone has continued to point fingers, either at Ford for recommending a lower tire pressure or at drivers for not maintaining the tires properly...
...recall came just as Firestone's North American business, which accounts for 40% of Bridgestone's total revenue, was hitting on all cylinders. In the past few years, it has caught up with rival Michelin to become the No. 2 tire supplier in the U.S., behind Goodyear, with some 22% of the estimated $22.5 billion total market, according to Tire Business, a trade newspaper. It won back bragging rights as the key tire sponsor for Indy 500 racing...
...Dropping the Firestone name altogether would be the most drastic measure, but many observers think it is the only viable way to keep the company's beachhead in the U.S. Bridgestone has an established, albeit smaller, place in the North American market as a high-end, premium tire brand, and most consumers don't seem to think of it as falling from the same rubber tree. "Probably the best thing Bridgestone can do with the Firestone name is put it under a rock and forget about it," says Art Spinella, who runs automotive-market researcher...