Social Media Week has taken New York City by storm, as thought-leaders and innovators discuss industry trends and developments. Kicking off Tuesday morning at the Business and Entrepreneurship Hub at Bloomberg HQ was Global Head of Social Media at Ford, Scott Monty. Scott Monty has been ranked by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Influencers in Social Media, and his presentation clearly demonstrated his mastery in the industry.
Scott Monty started the session by emphasizing the importance of personal relationships in our rapidly developing digital age. Monty believes that social media is bringing business back to a trusted relationship, and it helps combat the impersonality of our mass media age.
After establishing these sentiments, Monty took the audience through the history of Ford’s social media efforts and the lessons they learned along the way. He pointed out that the lessons Ford learned were universal, and that both big and small businesses could benefit from them.
Four years ago, Ford launched the Fiesta Movement introducing their new Ford Fiesta. The campaign involved giving away 100 Ford Fiestas to digitally connected people around the United States for 6 months, and then tasking them with video challenges each month. The whole campaign was documented via social media platforms, and the Fiesta Movement videos earned 6.2 million views on YouTube, 750,000 views on Flickr and 40 million impressions on Twitter with the hashtag #Fiesta Movement.
All in all, the success of this campaign was measured by the 82% increase in consideration by consumers new to Ford, and a 30% gain in consumers below the age of 25. The lesson Ford learned: If you have a good product, let go of your fear and let others tell your story.
The success of the 2009 Ford Fiesta campaign must have pleased the Ford executives, because Monty announced a revamping of the same campaign for their 2013 initiative. This campaign is called Fiesta Movement: A Social Remix and is extremely similar to the campaign four years ago. It will feature 100 people, a mix of celebrities, alumni from the past campaign and regular people who will get to use a Ford Focus for six months. Like last time, each of the people will be tasked with creating a video around a specific theme each month, and this content will be eligible to be Ford’s advertising content.
Ford’s advertising for this campaign will be largely user-generated and crowdsourced from the missions and activities of the Focus advocates.
Recruitment to become a Ford Focus agent started Tuesday, February 20 and the whole campaign is expected to roll out in late April or early May. If you’re interested, you can register online at www.fiestamovement.com or follow the hashtag #FiestaMovement.
Image courtesy of toprankonlinemarketing
