Crowd Sourced Marketing

I am in no way picking at the scab that is a certain company’s (lack of) marketing effort for a new vehicle that is set for its US debut in February of 2010. I provide this information as a general interest item following the excitement that the 2011 Ford Fiesta has created at the LA Auto Show this week.

If you haven’t seen the Fiesta or caught any of the buzz around the car, do a quick Google search for it. The car may not be your cup of tea, but the launch and excitement created around it are fantastic and worthy of a few moments of your time.

Not only is the pre-launch hype there, but Ford is actively searching out everyday people who are fans of the Fiesta to (gasp!) help market the car for them.

If you go to the Fiesta website, FiestaMovement.com you will see a letter asking for creative people to put together a team of two and brainstorm marketing and advertising ideas. There will be 20 teams selected to operate in specific parts of the country. Each team will be given a new Ford Fiesta with gas and insurance, and will be partnered with local advertising professionals to create their campaign. Oh, and the team gets a chance to win a new Fiesta when all is said and done.

The crowd-sourced advertising campaign is a great idea. Let the customers who are impassioned with the brand do the hard work for you. In fact, give them all of the tools, information, and resources they need to be extremely successful and spread the word.

I wonder what other company could benefit from this type of grass-roots, viral advertising and marketing. It seems to me that there is a particular company who is new to the US and on the verge of a product launch, and could easily organize an effort of this kind. This is a company who could potentially reap tangible rewards for creating some type of advertising campaign in any form. Who could that be???