On August 14, 1981, Ford Motor Company launched an advertising campaign with the slogan “Quality is Job 1.” The New York agency Wells, Rich, Greene produced it. More than 250 Ford employees appeared in the television commercials. The campaign ran for nearly 17 years. In 1998 Ford replaced it with “Better ideas. Driven by you.”
Ford reported a 25 percent improvement in quality between the 1980 and 1981 model years. Market research named the real employees as “the biggest reason for the campaign’s success.”
In 2025 Ford issued more than 150 recalls. The previous record for one year was 77, set by General Motors in 2014. Ford said the number of vehicles recalled “reflects our intensive strategy to quickly find and fix hardware and software issues.”