How Ford Used Social Media to Court Gen Y

How does one brand themselves in light of an increasingly rigid and hard-to-reach consumer group? Maybe automotive group Ford can teach us a thing or two – the 110 year old automotive Juggernaut has mastered marketing in the digital age and shows us just how effective a good content strategy can be.

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In this entry I will be looking at Social Media strategies and how in particular Ford have uses social content as a means to popularise the brand and tell its story. Furthermore, this will explain just how even your typical everyday platforms can transform your business into a living, breathing and sometimes lovable brand.

#1 The Formidable Gen Y

When the baby boomers were born they came out kicking and screaming, feeling oppressed and without voice in what was a truly unique and changing time in Thatcher’s Britain. The soon-to-be millennial generation however, have been brought up with their places at the tables already set, having already established their positions within society.

This arguably less vivid generation of Youngers are no less unique to their predecessors having been provided with a wider variety of options in life by their parents (Asghar, 2014). This leading to higher expectations in the market at a time of changing households and social independence has facilitated a far more rigid and hard-to-reach consumer group. For businesses this hosts an array of desirable attributes that few have had the chance to cash-in on. This has made Gen Y (AKA the millennials) the holy grail of modern segmentation.

#2 The Passion that Breeds Success

Ford are reputable for their adaptive and at times abrasive marketing strategy. In 2008 they decided to launch a Millennial strategy in which would see them target a segment which has seen many fail in the past. Research carried out by Maritz Research of St. Louis suggests that Ford were ranked first for brand consideration in 2013 (Ford Motors, 2013), up five places prior to their millennial strategy.

So let’s take a look at how they’ve used these platforms to accelerate the positioning of the brand…

#3 Keeping up With The Kids

So how does this happen? The Granddad of automobiles more current, engaging and dynamic as ever, taking the millennials by the throat and quite literally keeping them there!

Ford have achieved a competitive advantage through an inexpensive, bare boned strategy that doesn’t expand far beyond your everyday social platform.  However, it’s the manor and tone to which they’ve managed to resonate with its audience, using these platforms to lever themselves as a popular and attractive brand. Accomplished through a range of below-the-line techniques, Ford have injected a sense of life, humour and authenticity into its digital content that is non-sales like and  genuinely quite funny.

#4 Vine

Vine can be described as a short form video sharing service which has been at the centre of all the attention since its release in 2013. Providing its users with up to 6 second long video clip, the app invites its users to create content that can be shared and viewed by others, working systematically alongside Twitter.

Ford really hit home with this low-budget attempt to generate laughs. As you can see the video (Above) isn’t at all sales like, and really just uses it’s car as a product placement tool. This kind of light humour really breathes life into the brand without really saying anything about the car being depicted. I personally felt the gentle tone to which they promoted to be modest, and didn’t feel the victim of any aggressive sales tactic. While it’s true this strategy is a hard one to measure (at least in terms of ROI), it’s a rather inexpensive way in which to drive conversation around the video if not the brand.

#5 Facebook

it’s typical for even small companies to articulate themselves on Facebook nowadays and it certainly shouldn’t be overlooked as a powerful communications tool. With 1.35 billion users, Facebook is an ocean of opportunity to campaign, engage and sell to the desired audience. It’s the gift that keeps on giving…

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Ford have made a sterling effort to tap into its drivers by touching on sore subjects that are guaranteed to drive comments. In 2014 they worked on an interesting campaign that highlighted some of the worst pot-holes in Britain (Econsultancy, 2014) and encouraged people to post some of the worst pot-holes in their towns.

Of course this was an instant hit and what’s all the more impressive is that Ford reads its users comments and converses with them directly. This is in-keeping with Ford’s desire to engage with its 2.2 million followers and to reach in on their loyalty and advocacy. This is a deliberate attempt to build affection and positive feeling associated with the brand other than taking the conventional and often ineffective direct sales approach.

6# Twitter

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As another popular engagement tool, Twitter is a signpost for real-time content and information. For firms to prolong the life and value of their consumers they must grasp their affliction with an honest sense of branding, and Twitter, as much as anything else, is a branding app as well as a social app.

In 2010, to showcase its new Explorer model, Ford took to Twitter offering sneak peeks, interviews and behind the scenes in order to create a buzz on what would be an exciting new launch. Integrating its campaigns across all its digital platforms, Ford on the day of reveal received 100 million social impressions and 400 million browser impressions (Gothelf, 2013).

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Ford understands the value of its customers and the importance of brand ambassadors through the retweeting of their images (Ratcliff, 2014) to which only fosters a deeper sense of loyalty. The reality being that Ford have their fingers firmly on the pulses of their audience and sure know how to build a sense of excitement.

7# What Can Good Social Media Strategy Do For You?

Collaboration and community are important characteristics of Web 2.0 development and are key features of social communication services like social (Jansen, et al., 2009). Firms such as Ford, Apple and Cadburys have made use of Social Media not as a promotional tool but an engagement tool in order to better the perceptions of the brand. While of course for some of you smaller firms engagement may not be exactly highest on the agenda, it’s good CRM that you encourage a two way conversation with what is a potential customer. This almost takes the edge off traditional marketing and sales tactics which can appear tacky and somewhat of an imposition on users.

There are millions of impressions posted on social media everyday with huge collective potential given the right conditions are created. This ties into the notion that one impression can potentially disperse into the online community and create a mass following. This accelerates the rate to which word-of-mouth is articulated online which has higher influence power than traditional marketing (Nielsen, 2012).

However not all online impressions are articulated as positive: a study by Ease, Hammond & Wright, (2007) suggest that for every three positive eWOM articulations there is one negative, which suggests consumers are highly impressionable when they’re expectations are not met.

Recent studies have explored Twitter and even the notion of the Twitter Effect as a result of effective online articulations via social media (Wiertz, et al., 2013). Jansen et al., (2009) published a definitive paper investigating how often brands are discussed on Twitter in which they conclude of 150,000 postings, 19% of microblogs contain mention of a brand (Jansen, et al., 2009). Furthermore, they suggest that 50% of these postings are positive while 33% were negative.

Others have researched beyond this suggesting that social networking sites have created a unique online culture in which fosters eWOM behavior (Chu & Kim, 2011). What’s more is that social media creates a feeling of belongingness and trust encapsulated within a community-like environment. This subsequently allows brands to get in on the discussion and influence the conversation which in theory could knock consumer confidence in these platforms.

8# Five Lessons on How to Use Social Media Effectively

1) Don’t be afraid to let others tell your story
In 2009 Ford gave 100 digitally connected people Ford fiestas as part of their social campaign (Guardian, 2013). The divers (30% of which were under 25) would later document they’re experience with the car on social media with impressions and videos telling a story of their own experience with the car. This experiment resonated with drivers, and in particular young drivers (82% of which were new to Ford).

Taking a back seat role in this strategy has taught Ford to empower its audience thus creating a community-like environment. Once again this has breathed life into the tale of Ford as they sit back and watch their story blossom.

The biggest lesson to be learnt here is that it’s sometimes important to take a step back and to let your consumer do the talking. Vauxhall (a struggling manufacture with a host of affordable cars) can learn a lot from Ford especially when they have gen Y right at their fingertips in a failing attempt to conquer social media

2) Social media is not a short-term proposition
What you must remember is that with a large audience to maintain, social media has to be carefully tended to in order remain interested and engaging. Ford relishes the input and contribution of its fans and has created its Social Hub where consumers to do just that. This almost bestows a backstage pass in which fans can pass along their ideas and consume the ideas of others which of course serves as vital research for Ford.

Firms in this industry can’t remain flat footed where new information is coming to light by the second. Where Ford has seen others fail in social is due to their inconsistencies as car brands and have thus failed to be the eyes and ears of their consumer. Car fanatics are hungry for the latest on their ‘love’ brands and for those wishing to champion social media must create the best, and most relevant content at a high demand.

3) Social media is integrated media
Social media alone will not secure you of any first prizes. For best results – paid, owned and earned media should all integrated in a cohesive strategy that has the same residual goal. Ford achieved this with their Explorer launch which, prior to its released had seen events up and down the country in addition to its teaser strategy featured on Facebook.

Firms can’t underestimate the power of consumer ‘buzz’ prior to an upcoming release as Roschk & GroßE, (2013) indicates that the first few weeks before launch are imperative to sales. That’s why its important social media is integrated systematically across all aspects of a campaign in order to ensure that the audience is constantly in the loop and the conversation is never bought to a halt.

4) Gauge in on peoples personalities
As part of their millennial strategy, Ford decided to perform a perceptual overhaul on its Focus model from “the rental that nobody wants” to the “cool first car”. To appeal to this demographic it took to gen Y hotspots, online ad space and particularly social media platforms allowing them to showcase image and video content. In addition to its large ad campaign, Ford used Instagram, Tumblr and Pintrest to tap into the behaviours and values of young adults and encouraged those to share its videos. The results were palpable to which they found a 77% improvement in opinion of the focus, with a 61% consideration rate (Guardian, 2013).

So the question really is, do you know who you’re selling to? And what drives them, motivates them, makes them happy or sad? These are questions which will have you creating tailored content that resonates with consumers. Toyota, with a large customer base could really do with repositioning itself in such a way where they remain relevant in the west and not the mid-market stalemate they’re becoming. Creating a personality for your consumer creates identity for the brand and therefore must be kept consistent in all digital platforms to appear genuine.

5) Use the platforms that your audience uses
Last year Ford introduced another web series entitled “Escape my life” to promote the new Ford Escape model. Launched on YouTube and Tumble, Ford decided to use paid media integration and limit the series to only the two platforms. This made for a highly unified strategy subsequently allowing impressions to be directed to either two platforms at higher volumes. Overall, the campaign hub recorded 1.5 million visits, with a great deal occurring on Tumblr (Guardian, 2013). This tactic really helped Ford to showcase their Tumblr site and to later put it on a pedestal for all future campaigns.

Social media is overrun with thousands of ad campaigns and consumer impressions which is why it’s important only firms handpick only the most necessary of platforms. Vauxhall, for example only have an estimated twitter reach of 26,000, belittled by rival ford with around 460,000 and even Toyota with 110,000 (Twitterreach, 2014). As a social media benchmark, Toyota should seek to increase this number before setting eyes towards Vine and Instagram which at this stage will only confuse users at a time where they need to further progress in the digital arena.

References

Asghar, R., 2014. Gen X Is From Mars, Gen Y Is From Venus: A Primer On How To Motivate A Millennial. [Online]
Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robasghar/2014/01/14/gen-x-is-from-mars-gen-y-is-from-venus-a-primer-on-how-to-motivate-a-millennial/
[Accessed 12 February 2015].

Chu, S. & Kim, Y., 2011. Determinants of consumer engagement in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites. International Journal of Advertising, Vol 30(Issue 1), pp. 47-75.

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[Accessed 12 February 2015].

Ford Motors, 2014. FORD NOW LEADS SALES CONSIDERATION WITH MILLENNIALS. [Online]
Available at: https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2014/08/19/ford-now-leads-sales-consideration-with-millennials.html
[Accessed 12 February 2015].

Gothelf, A., 2013. 5 Social Media Lessons to Learn from Ford. [Online]
Available at: http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/5-social-media-lessons-to-learn-from-ford/
[Accessed 12 February 2015].

Guardian , 2013. 5 social media lessons to learn from Ford. [Online]
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[Accessed 12 February 2015].

Jansen, B., Zhang, M., Sobel, K. & Chowdury , A., 2009. Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol 60(Issue 11), pp. 2169-2188.

Ray, A., 2010. Peer Influence Analysis: What It Is & How Marketers Use It. [Online]
Available at: http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray/10-04-20-peer_influence_analysis_what_it_how_marketers_use_it
[Accessed 25 November 2014].

TwitterReach, 2014. TWEETREACH SNAPSHOT FOR VAUXHALL. [Online]
Available at: https://tweetreach.com/reports/13042335
[Accessed 5 December 2014].

Wiertz, C., Hennig Thurau, T. & Feldhaus, F., 2013. Exploring the “Twitter Effect:” An Investigation of the Impact of Microblogging Word of Mouth on Consumers’ Early Adoption of New Products. pp. 1-50.

Nielsen. (2012). Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages. The Nielsen Company. Retrieved November 25, 2014, from http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/2012-Reports/global-trust-in-advertising-2012.pdf

East, R., Hammond, K., & Wright, M. (2007). The relative incidence of positive and negative word of mouth: A multi-category study. International Journal of Research in Marketing, Vol 24(Issue 2), 175-184.

Roschk, H., & GroßE, S. (2013). Talking about Films: Word-of-Mouth Behavior and the Network of Success Determinants of Motion Pictures. Journal of Promotion Management, Vol 19(Issue 3), 299-316.