New Videos Extend 'Ford Fiesta Movement'

The Ford Fiesta Movement, a social media campaign launched last year to promote Ford’s newest subcompact model, is being extended with a video series that shows YouTube celebrities interacting with the Fiesta in creative ways to show off the car’s features.

Eight new videos began playing last week at FordVehicles.com, a YouTube page and a series of sites and blogs. The videos were created by Team Detroit and seeded by the Feed Company.

In “Fiesta Breakdance Battle” (embedded below), YouTube celeb Beto Lopez breakdances in front of the Fiesta as the dragon’s-eye headlamps, side mirror turn indicator and other features are highlighted. In “Fiesta Gets Romantic,” YouTube celeb Winston Robinson opens the Fiesta trunk to retrieve picnic items while his harried date uses the voice-activated sync to call a taxi.

The videos, which run about two minutes each, use graphic overlays to identify Fiesta features that fit into the humorous video plots.

“Viewers learn about the Fiesta in an entertaining way,” said Scott Lange, an executive creative director at Team Detroit. “It’s a new way of engaging people with more than just informational content.”

The YouTube celebrities were recruited last year to test drive models of the new Fiesta, which hadn’t been released in the U.S. yet. They reported on the experience through their blogs and individual YouTube accounts.

The social element of the Fiesta campaign carries through to the TV spots, said Lange. “The production value of the TV spots, which feature two people inside a Fiesta, were inspired by the personal connection with the audience we get through social media. Print and outdoor ads are also being used, but the foundation of the campaign is the social element.”

An initial series of seven videos, launched in May drew over a million cumulative views, and the second series has already generated 500,000, according to data compiled by the Feed Company, which guaranteed 500,000 and 350,000 views for the respective series.

The videos that play on YouTube utilize a feature called annotations, playing brief clips of two other videos in the series after a selected video is viewed in an effort to generate additional plays and keep viewers on the YouTube page.

Jackie Mayer, director of marketing at the Feed Company, said the company worked with the YouTube celebs and contacted editors at hundreds of sites to distribute the videos from the first and second series. “We went out and pitched communities and sites. It’s like 15 different marketing campaigns going on,” she said.

The goal of the video plays at YouTube and the other sites is to “bring them back to the experience at Fordvehicles.com, where more information on the Fiesta plays,” Lange said.