Fiesta Movement Program

1. How is the Fiesta Movement program going? Discuss the measures of outcome and input to evaluate the campaign. What is Ford trying to accomplish by the campaign? Discuss the trade-off between control and buzz. The Fiesta Movement was a huge success. By the end of 2 months, the campaign had garnered significantly improved numbers across the board, when compared to the Drive One campaign that had run for 3 months in early 2008 while having invested substantially less. The Ford Fiesta scored a 42% on the familiarity index with respect to B class vehicles, which was more than the expected 23% benchmark that the company hoped to achieve. The number of monthly visits to the Fiesta website surpassed 289,000 within the first two months of the campaign, which was more than the expected 144,000 visitors, a previous benchmark set by the Ford Flex. Although the case study only covers the first two months of the campaign, the supplement video Ford was trying to accomplish the following: a. Raising the level of awareness for the Ford Fiesta b. Gaining favorable opinion of the millennials. Traditional marketing campaigns such as TV advertisements and digital advertisements weren’t working for ford as the young and diverse audience weren’t attracted to Ford’s offerings. Ford wasn’t a strong player in the B Segment and was not in the consideration of this audience which was looking for small, subcompact and economical vehicles. By breaking traditional marketing barriers that Ford usually followed with their other products such as the F series trucks, Ford took a risk by choosing to market the Fiesta through selective Agents on social media. Not only was this movement successful for Fiesta, but it also turned out to be an example that Ford, and many other companies started to follow to market their products. They could save on extravagant media costs and gain more recognition through e-WOM. Ford never used to advertise its vehicles until they were produced and in stock. The digital marketing trend opened opportunities for Ford to introduce pre-orders, which increased the number of orders placed. This movement also gave Lenard ideas to improve marketing in the Asia-Pacific where she was later appointed as the marketing head. Taking such a risky leap of faith by handing over control of marketing to social media influencers instead of sticking to the marketing experts at Ford raised a lot of skepticism and doubt. There were a lot of “what-ifs” that arose. Influencers could make content that was irrelevant to fiesta, profane language and age-restricted content could be promoted, accidents could happen etc. Though these influencers had lot of young followers and generated a lot of buzz on topics they spoke of, there had to be control on the content that was being put out. Ford came up with a task list for these agents and the contents they developed would be submitted to Ford first, and after a review, if approved by Ford, they could share the content on their blogs, webpages and social media. By doing this, there was control over the type of content and the buzz it generated. 2. Discuss the use of Agents. What changes would you make? What are the incentives for the agents to get involved? Agents were people that Ford shortlisted from a long list of millennials who had significant online presence and following on digital and social media platforms. These agents were specifically targeted because the followers they had were part of the demographic that Ford was trying to attract towards the Ford Fiesta. Millennials who were looking for affordable, compact vehicles didn’t consider Ford as an option due to the company’s poor presence in the B segment. As mentioned by Chantel Lenard, if tv advertisements played, the millennials would walk away, if digital ads were shown they wouldn’t click through. To grab the attention of this demographic a much more unconventional approach was needed. Advertising their product with the help of these agents would not only lead to thousands hearing about Ford but also establish Ford as an open, progressive and accessible brand. Looking at Exhibit 9, a lot of the tasks in this theme were unrelated to the product itself. All these tasks required the agents to make use of the Ford Fiesta and perform tasks. But these tasks, in no way, spoke about the features of the vehicle, the specs of it, comparisons with other similar cars etc. Our group would’ve made a small change to the campaign by incorporating tasks that would have agents speak about the Fiesta. For example, they could talk about how it compares to their previous vehicle, talk about what they like about the car, about unique features in the car etc. The biggest incentive for these agents was the opportunity to test drive the Ford Fiesta, with all expenses paid. These agents could also be featured on the Fiesta Movement website, which contained information about how to find these agents on the web. This would increase visibility of their social media and digital channels and increase visitors to their channels and profiles who could potentially convert into subscribers/followers.