Best Use of Social Media

Program Name: Fiesta Movement
Client: Ford
Agency: JWT Team Detroit, Action Marketing Group, Undercurrent

Ford’s Fiesta Movement put 100 young trendsetters behind the wheels of 100 Fiestas for six months. As part of a social media initiative, they received gas and insurance, test drove and “lived” with the car, traveling as “agents” on special “missions” who then related their experiences through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. The missions were designed to be fun, take the agents to new places and let them experience new things, like training with U.S. Navy SEALS, hiking in the mountains, spending the day shadowing a stunt driver and learning to cook, um, with bugs, all while driving the European version of the Ford Fiesta and providing feedback to Ford on the product. And they all—especially Ford—lived to tell about it.

The Fiesta Movement took the car company into the realm of the ever-expanding social media space, a strategy that proved to be successful even before its official start. More than 4,000 applications were submitted by would-be agents, with more than 640,000 views of applicant videos on YouTube explaining why they would be the best representatives for the brand. Applicants cited online followers, blogging experience and even a thirst for adventure. Many were auto enthusiasts and all were comfortable sharing their opinions online.

Which they needed to be since the Fiesta Movement was aimed squarely at millennials who use social media daily and offered a prime opportunity for Ford to tap into a group that hasn’t yet established brand loyalty. According to a Microsoft study on millennials, each day 77 percent use Facebook, MySpace or other social networking sites.
The 100 chosen agents had established social networks with a strong web presence. Most had hundreds, if not thousands of Facebook friends. Most also had thousands of people following them on Twitter. After meeting their fellow agents at regional vehicle delivery days, a sense of friendly competition developed, turning the monthly video submissions into non-stop tweets, Facebook postings, Flickr photo uploads, blog posts and in some cases local TV interviews. But even more important, people were watching and paying attention, leaving comments, replying to videos, linking to content and praising Ford for taking a brave step into social media.

At the end of the six months, the agents gathered in Los Angeles for a post-event celebration where consumers could tune in and watch the 2011 Fiesta revealed on TV. The celebration was well deserved: those 100 agents created more than 50,000 pieces of original content, 212 million impressions on digital press and blogs, more than six million YouTube views, and four million impressions on Twitter. Party on!

Program Name: OCNN, Powered by Motoblur
Client: Motorola
Agency: Leader Enterprises, Genesco Sports

To promote its Motoblur social networking technology to football fans during the Super Bowl, Motorola teamed up with Chad Johnson (a.k.a. “Chad Ocho Cinco”), a wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, to create the online, athlete-run sports news network OCNN, the Ocho Cinco News Network. Ocho Cinco started engaging fans via Twitter when football season started last October. Then in February, OCNN came to life with its own news desk on the Super Bowl’s famed Radio Row where the mainstream sports media sets up to cover the tournament. In addition, Ocho Cinco and his news crew (also footballers) hit the streets in a branded news van to interact with fans. At the NFL’s media day, he stood up and asked a question like an official reporter, which turned OCNN into the big sidebar story of the day. An Associated Press story and Media Day coverage generated awareness about the OCNN microsite, setting the stage for OCNN’s daily coverage and establishing an audience for Ocho Cinco’s tweets and video posts.

Ocho Cinco’s Twitter following increased from 110,000 to more than 750,000 and the campaign generated more than 256 million highly targeted media impressions. OCNN videos were viewed upwards of 420,000 times.

Program Name: N97 Launch
Client: Nokia
Agency: PierceSmartfusion

When Nokia released its N97 multimedia device targeting early adopters of the latest and greatest in technology, it handed its campaign and device over to bloggers and invited them to post their discoveries online during a two-week tour to Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Challenges included reaching out through various online channels and hosting intimate tech meet-ups, a.k.a. Barcamps. The road trip was documented with the device in real-time using several social networking platforms. The on-the-road portion of the program culminated with an exclusive event in New York City where the wider early adopter community was invited to view the bloggers’ journey, explore the N97 and network over cocktails. The lounge-like environment included special features like a photo installation wall, featuring a montage of photos from the tour illustrating the bloggers’ adventures on the road.  

During the campaign, the N97 popped up in various online conversations, resulting in 1.2 million targeted connections. The event in New York had 336 guests in attendance and reached more than 290,000 people through online buzz and word of mouth.