About Ford Fiesta
The Ford Motor Company, commonly referred to as Ford is a global automotive industry leader headquartered in Michigan. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand.
The Ford Fiesta is one of the best small car manufactured by Ford. It’s won a number of awards for its sleek design and stylish exterior. Fiesta is also packed with innovative and new state of the art technological features.
Ford’s Business Objectives
Ford fiesta had the latest technology and features to complement today’s busy, tech-intensive lives but the challenge was to reach out to the tech savvy, socially active youth. Increasing the awareness of the innovative high tech features and to start a national conversation about Ford Fiesta was Ford’s main objective. Goal was that the Fiesta would be on top of their minds when the consumers think of buying a new vehicle.
Strategy adopted by Ford
Ford knew engaging with the customers would be key to increasing the reach, so they took the inbound marketing approach to earn the attention of the customers. They leveraged the photo-sharing app, Instagram for their campaign. Instagram was a perfect platform for a multinational campaign and, the people within Ford’s demographic target were avid users of Instagram.
“Fiestagram” – a six-week contest in which users throughout Europe could submit photos and win prizes was launched.
Every week a new hashtag associated with one of Ford Fiesta’s high tech feature was announced and people could participate in the competition by posting pictures on Instagram with the hashtag ‘#Fiestagram’ and, hashtag of that week. Some of the hashtags were #entry, # music, #starting and #Shapes.
Fiestagram campaign was also promoted through Ford Fiesta’s Facebook page. Instruction on how to participate in the contest, details of the weekly challenge, bios on the judges and details of each week’s hashtag and its relation to the high tech feature, were also displayed on the Facebook page.
Ford shared the pictures of the Fiestagram contestants on their official Facebook page. This supplemented Ford’s’ online popularity. Outstanding photos were featured in physical g
alleries and on live digital billboards. Winners were awarded iPads and digital cameras as gifts, and a brand new Ford Fiesta to the ultimate winner.
Results achieved by Ford
- Ford successfully attracted the attention of its target demographic groups – fashion, style and technology trendsetters
- More than 16,000 photos were submitted to the Fiestagram contest
- Ford acquired more than 120,000 new Facebook fans across Europe
- Facebook hub had an average dwell time of 3.4 minutes, indicating that people were interested in browsing through the galleries
- As the campaign gained popularity, it was even profiled in various publications such as PSFK, Le Cool and Le Parisien, and many blogs
Learnings
Fiestagram campaign was very simple and easy to understand, which boosted the number of participation and successfully increased the awareness of Fiesta’s high-tech features.
Ford was successful in increasing the enthusiasm of the participants and, creating lot of buzz by announcing multiple winners, and showcasing participant images on billboards and physical galleries.
Fiestagram is a great example that signifies the impact of inbound marketing and effectiveness of engaging with the customers.
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Image Credits: Ford