I saw my first Ford Fiesta the other day driving across the San Mateo Bridge.   The car doesn’t go on sale here until next year, but Ford held a contest where lucky drivers won a 6 month lease with gas and insurance paid.  The only catch — they have to blog about their experience.  Over 4000 people submitted video applications, but only 100 were chosen to be Fiesta Movement “agents.”  Given that the odds of seeing one of these cars on the road is pretty slim, I thought it was kind of cool.  To give you an idea of what it took to win, here is one agent’s application video:

In terms of marketing, it’s easy (but incorrect) to see this as a risky move for Ford. Just a few years ago it would have been hard to imagine the meeting in which some executive suggests putting 100 influential social media, web 2.0 experts behind the wheel of a new product a year in advance of it’s launch.  He would have been laughed at.  Especially when you consider the car is sized and priced as a subcompact, typically known for loud rides, cheap interiors, and underpowered engines.  And when they’ve positioned the Fiesta as a critical vehicle in terms of global platform sharing, fuel economy, styling, and Ford’s return to profitability, it would have seemed too risky to allow the demographic most opposed to domestic car manufacturers to shape the public opinion.

ford-fiesta

But it makes perfect sense.  The very fact they went ahead with the Fiesta Movement mitigates 99% of the risk.  It proves Ford is confident they have a winner on their hands, and I think they’re getting the message out to their target market in a very savvy way.  Since these drivers are posting real-time feedback to YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, and other outlets, their is no opportunity for the company to filter the messages.  The authenticity of the feedback is what makes it great — and believable.

Plus, who’s going to seriously blast it when they get to drive a 2011 model year car free that only 99 other people in the country have?

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