Slashdot Mirror
Ford Bets On Social Media For Fiesta
Ford is gambling on the power of social media for the new marketing campaign surrounding the Ford Fiesta subcompact. The auto giant handed over 100 new Fiestas to "agents" selected from 4,000 applicants and created YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter accounts for them to relay their experiences. "Ford is taking a hands-off approach and telling participants not to hold back their opinions, bolstering the campaign's credibility. 'We've told them to be completely honest — that's the only way it's going to work,' Monty told us. 'We won't tell them what to say, nor will we censor or edit any of their content.' So far, it's working in Ford's favor. The tweets on the FordFiesta Twitter page are generally favorable, if a bit dry, as are the posts over at The Fiesta Movement Facebook page. None of the 80 pictures on the Fiesta Movement Flickr page show broken down cars. There are a few hundred videos on the FiestaMovement YouTube account if anyone's got a few hours to kill."
http://www.myride.com/images/no-transform/myride/promotions/images/images/2009%20Ford%20Fiesta%20five-door-f3-4_400.jpg
Ford fiesta? More like Ford Siesta.
Oops, I think I just killed ford's careful marketing strategy.
Well +1 to their marketing department for proper use of the web, but -1 for naming the car "Fiesta." You know what the word "fiesta" brings to mind? Pinatas, bursting into little pieces all over the ground.
(aside: hey slashdot! how about some unicode support already!? all the browsers support it these days, but your app choked on my n-with-squiggly. fix that!)
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.