We’ve seen quite a few examples of corporate sites mashing up social media content and presenting it on a single page. Jeep is one of the earliest examples I can remember (they seem to have some special right now, called „urban ranger“).
Now, since June there is Fiat on the web. A wordpress powered site – actually a blog – with all the ingredients: a facebook widget, a youtube gallery, same with flickr, friendfeed is integrated, delicious links accessible, latest twitter updates: every „mandatory“ item seems to be present.
I am not mentioning that because it appears so fantastically special. Instead, I am slowly getting the perception that these kind of social brand presence aggregator sites are become „business as usual“. Or rather: should be considered by brand marketers as a mandatory online marketing component. Yet: how many of those sites have we really seen? How many brands actually have sufficient social media presences in order to justify such a site?
Samsung is on a roll with their viral videos. Here is another one that is fascinating to watch. It is based on the „unboxing“ meme that many adopted on youtube:
The year the media died… This video is great. almost 10 minutes long, like the original song by Don Mclean, and in bits seemingly redundant, but fun to watch and listen to nevertheless – well done!
In Germany in 2006, we had Opel (of GM) giving 4 Opel cars to bloggers for 4 weeks. Now, 3 years later and in the US, where everything is bigger, longer, etc. Ford does something even bigger and longer:
In the ultimate foreign exchange program, our 100 agents are spending six months behind the wheel of their own Fiesta, sharing their experiences, and completing monthly missions to show you what experiencing the Ford Fiesta is all about, way in advance of the U.S. launch in 2010.
FiestaMovement.com pulls in all of our agents’ content across the web to let you follow the Movement in one convenient place. And each month will highlight different themed Missions, from Travel, Adventure, and Social Activism to Technology, Style & Design, and Entertainment.
Apparently, over 4.000 people applied for this. You can follow the agents on all the usual social media suspects: twitter, facebook, youtube, flickr and on blogs. Plus potentially a few more – it seems to be up to the individual agents, where they want to be present.
The main campaign site is an aggregator of all the agents‘ content. All photos, blog entries, youtube videos,tweets, etc. you can follow on this site, or alternatively via one common RSS feed. Unfortunately, you are not able to participate in any way on the campaign site. No comment option, no voting, etc. At least for now. Once they start the monthly missions (from May 3rd) this might change, we’ll see. However, it might well be their strategy to keep participation in those places, where the content is, where users are used to participate with content: within the social networks themselves.
According to this source here (in German), the project is the single most important piece of „marketing“ for that car. Sounds like there will be no TV, no print advertising, etc. Quite an interesting approach, definitely one I will follow and see how it develops.
I really like social media aggregation projects like this. They are amongst the most complex to implement, believe me, both in terms of technical integration, as well as working out responsibilities and processes within the agency and with the client. Especially when you’re dealing with time frames that last longer than the usual campaign, i.e. at least 6 months, as in this case (if you include recruitment and teaser phase, which we seem to be in right now).
Last, but not least, you need considerable staff 24/7 to maintain the community to filter not acceptable content (yes, for most projects, there will be some!), if they do actually monitor external commentary. (Because, as mentioned above, you don’t seem to be able to comment or participate at all.)
(By the way, does anyone know the agency behind this?)
Need a short URL for twitter? try http://url.so-smart.be/ instead of the typical tinyurl.com – this is a nice marketing idea by smart, the shortest car around. 😉
A nice new advert by Hondy, in stopmotion, using lots and lots of cars:
A card board trailer of „300“ by Panasonic – what would happen to Hollywood given the current financial crisis. It belongs to a German UGC campaign of Panasonic. At the microsite papphelden.de you can upload your own cardboard version of a Hollywood Blockbuster an win lots of prizes.
A rather cruel (viral) video, could be a little less gruesome, if you ask me. But then, some say, a good viral video needs violence, blood and disgustingness. However, they called it: „violence is no solution“ – it’s an advert for a secure e-commerce shop.
Wo ich sonst so bin...