Ford Teams up With Former French First Lady to Bump Sales in the Hexagon

With Ford being one of them. The company has a pitiful market share of 4.3 percent in France, which is close to nothing compared to the local brands: 26% for PSA (Citroen and Peugeot) and a staggering 30% for Renault.

It's safe to say, then, there's room for improvement for Ford. You could argue that Ford's European products have lacked personality up until recently, but hey, sometimes it's better to have less personality and tons of reliability, if you get my drift.

But Ford is working on it now and has hired the help of the country's former First Lady, Francois Sarkozy's wife, Carla Bruni. Misses Bruni is also a former top model, successful singer and, judging by this performance, potential actress.

Ford's campaign aimed at boosting its sales in France is called "Prendre un virage" which, if you'll pardon my French, is translatable by "take a turn" or, the real idea behind the message, "make a change".

The clip shows Carla Bruni ditching what made her famous for following her newly found passion (we won't disclose what that is, but we reckon it would suit her in real life). In terms of advertising, the clip is rather weird since no reference to anything car-related is made at any point, and not even one car shows up, be it a Ford or anything else.

What Ford is basically trying to say with so many words is "hey, Frenchies, it's time you got out of your comfort zone and tried something new for a change. Who knows, you might even like it?" Yeah, you got it, hopefully that "something new" is a Ford.

You can watch the clip here (it's got subtitles if French isn't your cup of tea) and at the end you can go to Ford's website campaign, but we've just given you a shortcut here.