A research assignment done by: Mr. Koffi Olomide, 31st October, 2012. Warsaw, Poland.
Ford Fiesta Movement (FFM) and social media INTRODUCTION In 2009, the Ford car company crafted a new marketing strategy for its soon to be launched car “Ford Fiesta” which was dubbed the Ford Fiesta Movement. The company decided to venture into new mediums of advertising which had never been tried in the past. The new marketing platforms included; social networking sites, blogs and viral marketing techniques. The new marketing strategy was less costly compared to the traditional marketing methods of advertising such as television, and newspaper and magazine adverts. The use of Viral Marketing Campaign (VMC) for the promotion of Ford Fiesta was a risky strategy, since it did not give the marking team at Ford the capacity to control the conversation regarding their product. It could produce the desired positive feedback form the targeted clients or in case something wrong happened in the course of the promotion which directly affects the product and the consumers, then the consequences would have been huge. Target market for the ford fiesta In the midst of the recession in 2009, the credit crunch made the availability of consumption credit difficult to access. Hence, there was a low demand of new cars in the market. The ford car company though that by introducing more fuel efficient small compact cars, it would somehow manage to deal with the problem. Ford thought by introducing the ford fiesta, it would capture the market due to the economic friendly features of the new car. The targeted market for the ford fiesta was the Young people aged (14-29). This was because this group of people was about 20 percent of the United States new car buyer market. In order to attract this segment of the population, ford had to come up with a convincing strategy which would make the ford fiesta seem trendy and hip. Ford also had to emphasize about how ecological the fiesta was in order to appeal to their targeted base of consumers. For the campaign to be successful, they had to devise a strategy of creating a buzz about the new ford fiesta. The second step was to convince their targeted clients the car was functional and efficient apart from being sub-compact. These steps were meant to ensure that the consumer was fully informed about the product. However, there were some challenges which they had to overcome before the ford fiesta launch. These challenges included; in a saturated car market like the U.S, building awareness for a car model that has not been in the market for quite a long period of time could have been difficult. Secondly, it was a challenge to convince consumers especially the young ones that a small car like the ford fiesta could be hip and stylish. They also had to demonstrate the benefits of the ford fiesta in a genuine and authentic way without a large scale sampling process. The most effective way of position the ford focus brand, is by reaching out to the consumer engaging with them directly about the product and getting feedback on what are the positive and the negative issues that affect them while using the car. This direct engagement can be done through the new interactive mediums such as the social networking sites and blogs. The marketing department needs to also come up with new strategies of having the consumers as their most effective mouthpieces. As it was with the ford fiesta marketing strategy, the word of 1
mouth is sometimes seen as the most effective way of convincing a new consumer to purchase the product. A company may give away free sample of the product to be launched to some of their targeted population, who would then try it, and recommend it to their friends and families if they find it appealing to them. However, in the case of ford fiesta, it would not have been possible to give away free cars as samples, but the idea of having a selected segment of the targeted population provided with test vehicle for a limited period of time, may also work to serve this purpose. These people are them encouraged to share their experiences about the new product with their friends and families. Leveraging on social media The ford fiesta movement leveraged on social media by brand awareness, this can be easily tracked online by monitoring the responses of people on the social websites. Every time a person uses an application by the company, the company gains exposure of its brand. For example when the ford fiesta movement decided to use the social media such as twitter, Facebook and MySpace websites, for every moment that a potential consume twitted of face booked about the ford fiesta, the brand gained more recognition and therefore more consumers were are of the brand. Brand engagement is also another way of engaging the consumer about the product. Brand engagement can be carried out by encouraging potential consumers to join and engage in a discussion about the new product online. This can be done on social websites such as Facebook or twitter. It is easier to monitor the performance of the advertising campaign by following the number of new sign-ups and comments online. With this kind of approach, the consumers may on themselves create a buzz about the upcoming product. The ford fiesta movement also made use of this approach while doing their online marketing campaign. They encouraged the consumers to share their real experiences online regardless of whether they were positive or negative. This helps the consumer to feel more engaged in the conversation about the product and in return gives the marketing team valuable feedback on the thoughts and tastes of their targeted consumer. The other way of engaging the potential consumer is through word of mouth. In this method, the company may provide some samples of its products to its selected target consumer segment. Who then will share their experiences with their peers about the product, the satisfied consumers of the product can also communicate about their satisfaction on the blog which has been setup by the company. The only downside of this approach is that if there are many dissatisfied consumers who may end up making many negative comments about the products on the social sites or blogs, this may end up harming the product even before it ventures into the market. The ford fiesta movement also made use of this approach when they selected a few people, who they gave test cars to use free for six months; they also required them to mention their experiences on their Facebook and twitter handles every time they were using the ford fiesta. This approach is more credible and convincing to potential consumers since they get to interact with actual people who consume these products. Conclusion The use of the social media as a way of advertising by the ford fiesta movement, was not only successful, since it had managed to get a feedback of around 50,000 potential buyers at the end of their campaign but it also heralded a new low cost and effective marketing strategy. Marketing managers need to understand and embrace the new social media as a form of reaching their potential clients. This is not only a cheaper and easier way, but it also encourages direct 2
feedback about the product from the consumers which is valuable to company since it will help in understanding the tastes and preferences of the targeted consumer well.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: D.L. Hoffman and T.P. Novak, “Social Media Strategy,” in “Handbook on Marketing Strategy,” ed. V. Shankar and G.S. Carpenter (Northampton, Massachusetts: Edward Elgar Publishing, in press). T.P. Novak and D.L. Hoffman, “Roles and Goals: Consumer Motivations to Use the Social Web” (paper presented at the INFORMS Marketing Science Conference, Cologne, Germany, June 19, 2010). L. Littman, J. Nagy and N. Wortman, “Advertising on Social Networks Drives In-Store Sales,” 2008, www.thearf.org. E.B. York, “Kellogg Says ROI on Digital Trounces TV by „Factor of 2‟,” Advertising Age, Sept. 6, 2008. B. Cummings, “J&J Takes Baby Steps Toward Social Media,” Brandweek, Apr.13, 2008.
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