I was raised on General Motors cars; that was my father’s choice of wheels. My first car was a Cadillac-an 8-year-old one that my dad, an automobile dealer, bought for my 16th birthday. it was a behemoth V8 gas guzzler, and I loved to drive it. My current car is a 2002 Ford Focus wagon I bought when it had just over 20,000 miles. It happened to be the best car in my budget range when I went shopping, and it’s been an economic, efficient ride. I figure my late father would forgive me for venturing outside of the GM family.
I’ve been paying attention to Ford’s marketing and PR efforts since my friend Scott Monty was hired to lead their social media efforts. Scott was one of the first people I followed on Twitter, and I’ve had the privilege of meeting him in person a few times.
So I was really intrigued that Ford chose to reveal the new 2011 Explorer, not at a car show, but on Facebook, in conjunction with a live unveiling in Herald Square in New York City and in these additional locations: Toronto, Washington, DC, Miami, Chicago, Dearborn, Dallas, Denver, and Los Angeles.
Check out the Ford Explorer Facebook page, which served as the hub for all the day’s activities and a repository for the reveal videos. Scott was in New York, “manning the Interwebz” as he tweeted.
I watched a few of the videos and learned about the design and safety features of the new Explorer, including inflatable seatbelts for rear-seat passengers. That’s a great feature, and I hope it’s adopted by other automakers.
Oh, and I also registered in the sweepstakes drawing to win one of the new Explorers. Ford had announced that if they got at least 30,000 fans … er, “likes” … on the Facebook page, they would give away an Explorer. They went well over that mark last week, and the page now has over 53,000 likes.
It looks like nearly every post on the Facebook page has gotten over 100 comments, so there has been a lot of engagement with both fans and detractors. I’ll be curious to see reports on the results of the Facebook-driven launch.
What do you think about yesterday’s Explorer launch: was it simply social media hype, or does this signal a new type of interactive marketing event to not only reach but engage the masses?
July 27th, 2010 at 9:31 am
It’s great to see companies using social more effectively, and no-one can argue that Ford isn’t doing a great job leading the way.
Though as I mentioned in Scott’s interview with Robin Carey over at Social Media Today, Ford isn’t the first to use social (or Facebook specifically) in this way:
http://www.motorauthority.com/blog/1047508_audi-unveils-facebook-site-for-2011-a7-launch
http://www.facebook.com/audi?v=app_10467688569
http://www.polodriver.com/polo-2009/2010-polo-gti-exclusive-digital-market-launch-on-facebook/
http://www.facebook.com/volkswagen
And I guess you could (possibly) look at Volvo as having launched a new model via Facebook with their virtual road trip last year:
http://www.caradvice.com.au/47916/volvo-c30-drive-facebook-launch-virtual-round-world-contest/
Though the real proof of the pudding in social’s acceptance as a mainstream marketing and promotional tool will be when we see more names than the usual suspects, that we already know are doing well in the space.
July 27th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Danny, thanks for sharing the links! It’s mind boggling to me how rapidly Facebook has grown from a photo/status sharing tool to a mainstream marketing channel. As you said, it seems to be working for major brands with large consumer markets — we’ll just have to see where it goes from here.