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Ford is being really innovative with what they have called the ‘Fiesta Movement’. They offered 100 Fiestas to social media users across America to use for six months and asked the winning ‘agents’ from 3,300 applicants to record their experience using the Web 2.0 tool of their choice. The agents are given varied tasks to perform in the cars to add a bit of excitement.

This has already generated a big buzz in the country and as the winning agents start spreading the word about the car this buzz will only grow.

Ford should be commended for being one of the first multinationals to accept that they can’t control their brand image on the web. People will say or do what they want and these opinions are now a big part of a brand. More interesting comment on this idea from Simon Law.

By embracing Twitter, Youtube, Flickr and Facebook Ford is hoping to build customer advocacy amongst a generation know as the ‘Millenials’, those born between 1979 and 1985 that Ford says will be a market of 70m American drivers in 2010.

Ford themselves claim that “for millennials, social media is a part of everyday life. Statistics show that for those born after 1980, 62% of the content they consume comes from someone they know personally”. This highlights the value of building networks of brand advocates which they are supporting by giving away 100,000 test drives. If all of these are taken up Ford will have reached 1 in every 700 of their potential market personally. Multiplied by the social networking reach of each of these the new Fiesta has a great base to launch from in America. 

Examples
Fiesta Movement Facebook Page
Fiesta Movement Flickr Photostream
Rhett’s Fiesta Movement Facebook Page
GiveUsAFiesta Twitter
GiveUsAFiesta Youtube