You have to hand it to Ford for being so creative. Their new social media campaign gives Ford Fiestas to 100 young people for six months and asks them to document their journeys by blogging and posting to social networking sites. Pretty cool idea, but the basic question that experts like Mashable are asking is “Can Social Media Make Us Buy More Cars?”
image by Chris Brogan says yes, and either way it’s more interesting than watching any car commercial. More importantly though, can social media help change the negative perception of a brand?
If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I’m a raving fan of Acura. When I bought a car a few years back, Ford didn’t even enter my mind as a brand I would research. I had a perception that brands like Acura, Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen produced high quality cars with a low cost of ownership, while domestic brands like Ford, Chevy and Pontiac were much less reliable. It will take a lot for Ford to convince me to not buy an Acura the next time around, but others will be more easily swayed. Those who aren’t swayed at least have to respect Ford for trying something that no other company has done before to this magnitude. It will be interesting to see how Ford measures their success. A non-traditional campaign like this can’t be measured only in dollars and cents, but rather with the number of new fans, followers and tweets.
Will this campaign pave the way for similar initiatives, and not just in the auto industry? Wouldn’t it be cool if, for example, Adidas gave 1000 pairs of new shoes to distance runners to test and blog about? What about other cool new products that could use a social media boost, like electric toothbrushes or universal remote controls? Tell me what you think in the comments section.
