Social Media Experiment by Ford Fiesta!
As we enter deeper into the recession period, brands are thinking of innovative ways to engage customers and create buzz. One of the flagship strategies to achieve these objectives is the deployment of a Social Media Marketing program.
Auto-makers have been the early proponents of Social Media Marketing and we have seen a few cases, though isolated and not fully integrated, of SMM in the past few years.
The latest entrant in this space is FORD, which is launching it’s new version of Fiesta in USA and hopefully in India too, by 2010.
The program is christened ‘Fiesta Movement’, and as a part of the program Ford will select 100 tech-savvy (read active bloggers) car enthusiasts to each drive a Ford Fiesta and let them populate their experiences on their blogs, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and other social media sites.
Ford is trying to make this, a memorable and interesting experience which these 100 enthusiasts will love to share with their followers and near ones. Ford will organise a mission, and during the course of mission these enthusiasts will travel to new places meet new people and share their experience digitally. Of course there’s free petrol, insurance and concierge service etc.
Ford can achieve the following through this program:
1. By giving away 100 Fiesta (for a specific period of time)-it will hear from the horses’ mouths, on whether the car delivers on the key promise or not.
2. It will immediately embark on a platform where the car itself will be indirectly or directly be endorsed by opinion leaders and where hundreds of thousands of followers will be influenced-without Ford actually sending any money on media
3. It will create a chain-reaction or viral effect of comments which will reach the secondary audience
4. Search engine links for ‘Ford Fiesta’ for various keywords will improve drastically
5. Very clearly position the Fiesta more strongly with the youth audience
6. Could see a burst in Test Drive and eventual sales
HP organised a similar Social Media Marketing Program some time back, and experienced huge success. The time of Social Media Marketing is here, and it’s very heartening to see companies like Dell, HP and Ford take the leading step.
Reference: www.fiestamovement.com
Feb 5th, 2009 at 10:21 am
this is the way to go, equip the enthusiasts with all the information and tools to convert him into a brand ambassador .
Feb 9th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Well that shows the impact of Social Media Marketing and during these times of correction in market , it is indeed a right step taken by Ford
Feb 16th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
With heavy loses, Ford will be forced to bring in an innovative idea, and i think that they are in the right track
Mar 2nd, 2009 at 9:00 am
I guess this is a good idea to only begin. The best thing is to also maintain it for future promotions also. But, certainly this is a very good lead by Ford. In such a recession period, the smartness lies in using Online Medium as the main source of communication. I would like to add some more suggestions to this marketing, once ford starts getting reviews, that can be further populated and can be published on Social News, such as Digg, Reddit, Stumble upon and many more and also use Article marketing directories for further enhancement. The core idea should be the a 360 degree communication.
This will also not leave any area to tap on Online Media. Can also look at SEO tactics further.