Ford launches its new car on the cheap - by giving 100 away FREE!
Social media is all the rage these days but Ford hit on a new twist to introduce the new Fiesta to the US - and it's been a stunning success
Instead Ford launched a viral marketing campaign in which the company gave away 100 Fiestas to "social agents" who would be willing to post videos on YouTube, take pictures, blog, tweet and otherwise get the message out about the car.
Reporting the plan, Business Week says, "What's interesting here is not that Ford co-opted people to drive its cars and spread its message, but that Ford was willing to take the risk. This, it turns out, was a stroke of brilliance. " The "Fiesta Movement" as it was dubbed has generated 6.2 million YouTube viewings; 750,000 clicks on Flickr; and 4 million Twitter impressions. Earlier this month, Ford said it had 10,000 reservations for the car- which won't even be delivered until late summer. The bigger deal for Ford, said Business Week, was that 30% of those hand-raisers were under 25 and 83% of them were new to Ford. "Bingo: A marketing campaign that cost Ford next to nothing and massively raised awareness of the Blue Oval is precisely what Ford wanted out of the Fiesta launch. "Even if it had spent millions, the company might never have achieved what it has wrought by social media alone."