Three years after its Fiesta Movement campaign wrote a new playbook for social-media marketing, Ford is launching a "Social Remix" for the 2014 Ford Fiesta that it hopes will represent a similar advance—and sell more cars—through an industry-first paid-media campaign that is completely crowdsourced.
Scott Monty, global head of social media for Ford, is unveiling the Fiesta Movement remix at aSocial Media Week panel in New York this morning. Monty told brandchannel before the session that "we're taking the core idea of Fiesta Movement, which is still a very solid concept, and taking it to the next level."
The automaker is introducing the new Feista through a multichannel campaign that will be entirely crowdsourced by consumers. Also, in an echo of the original Fiesta Movement year-long campaignthat gave new Fiestas to bloggers and other online influencers ahead of the car's 2011 debut, Ford is once again seeking 100 "social influencers" to convey the "unique personality and attributes" of the attributes of the new car — but "in an entirely different way," as the automaker stated in a press release.
"We're connecting with some of our [influencer] alumni and celebrities and putting paid media against" the Fiesta Movement campaign this time, said Monty, who was planning to reveal his plans on Tuesday morning at the Social Media Week conference in New York. "In 2009, what we did was entirely organic, and we amplified that. This time, we're turning to our 100 Fiesta 'agents' and saying, 'We're going to use only your content for our ad campaign for the new Fiesta.' That's never been done before in the auto industry."
The "agents" (social media influencers, including bloggers and vloggers) selected for the new Fiesta Movement will receive a pretty sweet ride, as Ford's blog post notes:
Ford will supply the new Fiesta, gas, insurance and all the tools you’ll need to complete missions and experience once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. If selected as an agent, all you have to do is share the outcomes with your fans and followers. And here’s the twist. We’re going to share the best of the best content with the rest of the world. So if your stuff rises to the top, it could be your photo in prints advertisements or your face on TV!
Ford will once again partner with high-profile TV, entertainment and sports programming including (again) American Idol and X Games and the Bonnaroo music festival. It will give the 100 agents their cars and allow them to use adventures in their vehicles to entertain their followers, as in the previous campaign.
But unlike four years ago, Monty emphasized, Ford will use only those creators' content in its TV commercials and other marketing as it curates all of the content the influencers generate on anew website. The original Fiesta Movement remained mainly a social-media phenomenon, with video updates still evident on its old YouTube channel. Some believe that Ford's decision to limit the use of its socially generated content in 2009 may have led to later sales weakness for the car, as it soon became usurped in Ford's overall sales plan by the new Ford Focus.
This time around, Monty emphasized, Ford will be more deliberate about trying to drive sales of Fiesta through the Movement "remix." Among new advantages for the nameplate this time around are the option of a 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine and the fact that gasoline prices not only are higher than four years ago but are spiking again.
Still, Monty told brandchannel, the remix and eventual ads will be "about a lifestyle and everything in concert and in particular being able to get the value with Fiesta that we can prove to customers" rather than "breaking [the car's appeal] down feature by feature."
In the still nascent business of social-media marketing, four years is ancient history. It'll be interesting to see how Ford reignites the Fiesta Movement for a new generation.
Nowadays, social media is one of the most effective tool that can help you promote your business products and it is also commonly use by some big enterprises when it comes in advertising.
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