FIESTA Movement: I drove one!

[Bravada]

See above for free publicity. See the number of posts about the Fiesta in a GM forum. Do people go like "OMG, where can I drive the Aveo?". The Fiesta is being covered by every other news outlet accross the country.

[fp115]

Originally Posted by Bravada

See above for free publicity. See the number of posts about the Fiesta in a GM forum. Do people go like "OMG, where can I drive the Aveo?". The Fiesta is being covered by every other news outlet accross the country.

So by that reasoning EVERY new model ever launched is free publicity.

Also, events like the Fiesta movement are not cheap. I am hosting a similar event in the fall and it will cost automakers $400k for the location rental, transportation, insurance, and payroll. This doesn't even include marketing materials. You best hope that you get word of mouth out of the deal.

[Bravada]

$400K is fairly easy spendable on TV ads, and more often than not you get minuscule publicity for those. Moreover, even if, people would be talking about the ad, and not the car. I believe spending on your services could do automakers much more good than traditional advertising.

Which is not to say I don't believe one couldn't do that cheaper

[davidlane]

Originally Posted by fp115

So by that reasoning EVERY new model ever launched is free publicity.

Also, events like the Fiesta movement are not cheap. I am hosting a similar event in the fall and it will cost automakers $400k for the location rental, transportation, insurance, and payroll. This doesn't even include marketing materials. You best hope that you get word of mouth out of the deal.

Given the overall marketing campaign Ford is conducting I'd be willing to bet their will be for more non car "buffs" aware of the Fiesta than the Camaro and it will be a bigger sales success.

[Ttple]

Originally Posted by davidlane

Given the overall marketing campaign Ford is conducting I'd be willing to bet their will be for more non car "buffs" aware of the Fiesta than the Camaro and it will be a bigger sales success.

The Fiesta is a mainstream car that is practical, fun to drive, and good on gas. It will crush the Camaro in sales.

[LeSabre]

This Fiesta movement will help push "word of mouth" advertising about the car, thus being free publicity in the long term.



!!

[ARCANGEL]

Originally Posted by fp115

What free publicity? Ford has spent a LOT of money on this car's marketing so far and hasn't even completely launched. My company is doing some more work with Ford for the Fiesta and they are certainly paying for it as they would with every other company.

here is an interesting question for you. I believe marketing ideas like this and other more personal endeavors work much better than TV commercials. so what I am asking is if this cost FORD 400K and lets say a commercial cost 1 million. In the end which one do you deem more effective seeing as you are in the business? And if so which ends up being the better value per dollar? Thanks

[davidlane]

Originally Posted by davidlane

Given the overall marketing campaign Ford is conducting I'd be willing to bet their will be for more non car "buffs" aware of the Fiesta than the Camaro and it will be a bigger sales success.

Originally Posted by Ttple

The Fiesta is a mainstream car that is practical, fun to drive, and good on gas. It will crush the Camaro in sales.

Will the same hold true for the 2010 Mustang?

[escapen]

I think the fiesta movement i they really market the hell out of it and especially once Ford reps mention anything "European" people are intrigued. I mean they were telling this one lady that it was designed in Germany and they got al excited and I think just that little bit of info changed their perception of Ford

The truck that tows some of the Fiestas across country from city to city was a F-450 and that was alot of peoples perception of Ford. BIG trucks, so after their test drive in this car they can really know that Ford is in the market to make every kind of vehicle in every segment. I mean when 3 out of the 10 questions asked were our perception of the brand, Ford must want to know what we as a country think of the brand before we drive a car that will or could change those perceptions.

[fp115]

Originally Posted by ARCANGEL

here is an interesting question for you. I believe marketing ideas like this and other more personal endeavors work much better than TV commercials. so what I am asking is if this cost FORD 400K and lets say a commercial cost 1 million. In the end which one do you deem more effective seeing as you are in the business? And if so which ends up being the better value per dollar? Thanks

But when GM was doing this last year, it was a mistake? I worked on developing the marketing model 2 years ago, it had good success with Saturn brands and the GM branded one. It did get the word of mouth going, but people only wanted to go to them to try out cars and have a BBQ. Saturn's event did generate a lot of sales, but it was certainly not cheap.

With events like this you need to look at all angles. Including the average marketing cost per unit sold. Events like this will likely generate a buzz that will attract a few thousand people, unless it is a one day event, in which it will attract a few hundreds. From those you can expect them to tell immediate friends, which on average is about 3 or 4. So depending on the size of the event, one that lasts an entire weekend and attracts 2,000 people will reach out to less than 10,000 people. And of those, only 20% of them have actually seen something. And of that 2000 it is not likely that all of them like the vehicle, so you can factor in at least 10% of the people to hate the vehicle, which roughs out to them telling the car sucks to 800 people.

Summary:
2000 people visit
tell 3-4 of their friends
10,000 find out about the car
200 people tell 800 of their friends it is a terrible car
You've reached 9,000 people
An event this size will cost about $375k.

With ads there is one message and it reaches in the hundreds of thousands and at times millions. There is no hands on approach, but is likely to sell more cars than such an event. Marketing is a science, you need to be unique, funny and daring. TV, newspaper, internet and billboard ads will never leave. Because they always give a positive message, unlike word of mouth marketing, which is more along the lines of PR.

Each event similar to this, a company can expect to sell around 10% of people that attend and to about 2% of people who heard it from a friend. You are spending more than $1k per car sold through this event. This doesn't even include the traditional marketing Ford will do for this vehicle, which usually adds on another $1k per vehicle, the average a company spends per vehicle is $1.2-1.3k through ad campaigns. Cars sold through this program actually cost more to the company than traditional marketing, the only difference is that you are more likely to convert someone to the brand which ads could not do as efficiently.

This is nothing more than a PR booster. I never once called it a marketing campaign, because it isn't.

[davidlane]

Originally Posted by fp115

But when GM was doing this last year, it was a mistake? I worked on developing the marketing model 2 years ago, it had good success with Saturn brands and the GM branded one. It did get the word of mouth going, but people only wanted to go to them to try out cars and have a BBQ. Saturn's event did generate a lot of sales, but it was certainly not cheap.

With events like this you need to look at all angles. Including the average marketing cost per unit sold. Events like this will likely generate a buzz that will attract a few thousand people, unless it is a one day event, in which it will attract a few hundreds. From those you can expect them to tell immediate friends, which on average is about 3 or 4. So depending on the size of the event, one that lasts an entire weekend and attracts 2,000 people will reach out to less than 10,000 people. And of those, only 20% of them have actually seen something. And of that 2000 it is not likely that all of them like the vehicle, so you can factor in at least 10% of the people to hate the vehicle, which roughs out to them telling the car sucks to 800 people.

Summary:
2000 people visit
tell 3-4 of their friends
10,000 find out about the car
200 people tell 800 of their friends it is a terrible car
You've reached 9,000 people
An event this size will cost about $375k.

With ads there is one message and it reaches in the hundreds of thousands and at times millions. There is no hands on approach, but is likely to sell more cars than such an event. Marketing is a science, you need to be unique, funny and daring. TV, newspaper, internet and billboard ads will never leave. Because they always give a positive message, unlike word of mouth marketing, which is more along the lines of PR.

Each event similar to this, a company can expect to sell around 10% of people that attend and to about 2% of people who heard it from a friend. You are spending more than $1k per car sold through this event. This doesn't even include the traditional marketing Ford will do for this vehicle, which usually adds on another $1k per vehicle, the average a company spends per vehicle is $1.2-1.3k through ad campaigns. Cars sold through this program actually cost more to the company than traditional marketing, the only difference is that you are more likely to convert someone to the brand which ads could not do as efficiently.

This is nothing more than a PR booster. I never once called it a marketing campaign, because it isn't.

Still less expensive than the over $4,000+ per car Cadillac is spending to move iron in this market. And that's after all the "marketing" money you're talking about.

[ARCANGEL]

Originally Posted by davidlane

Will the same hold true for the 2010 Mustang?

I believe it will

[ARCANGEL]

Originally Posted by fp115

But when GM was doing this last year, it was a mistake? I worked on developing the marketing model 2 years ago, it had good success with Saturn brands and the GM branded one. It did get the word of mouth going, but people only wanted to go to them to try out cars and have a BBQ. Saturn's event did generate a lot of sales, but it was certainly not cheap.

With events like this you need to look at all angles. Including the average marketing cost per unit sold. Events like this will likely generate a buzz that will attract a few thousand people, unless it is a one day event, in which it will attract a few hundreds. From those you can expect them to tell immediate friends, which on average is about 3 or 4. So depending on the size of the event, one that lasts an entire weekend and attracts 2,000 people will reach out to less than 10,000 people. And of those, only 20% of them have actually seen something. And of that 2000 it is not likely that all of them like the vehicle, so you can factor in at least 10% of the people to hate the vehicle, which roughs out to them telling the car sucks to 800 people.

Summary:
2000 people visit
tell 3-4 of their friends
10,000 find out about the car
200 people tell 800 of their friends it is a terrible car
You've reached 9,000 people
An event this size will cost about $375k.

With ads there is one message and it reaches in the hundreds of thousands and at times millions. There is no hands on approach, but is likely to sell more cars than such an event. Marketing is a science, you need to be unique, funny and daring. TV, newspaper, internet and billboard ads will never leave. Because they always give a positive message, unlike word of mouth marketing, which is more along the lines of PR.

Each event similar to this, a company can expect to sell around 10% of people that attend and to about 2% of people who heard it from a friend. You are spending more than $1k per car sold through this event. This doesn't even include the traditional marketing Ford will do for this vehicle, which usually adds on another $1k per vehicle, the average a company spends per vehicle is $1.2-1.3k through ad campaigns. Cars sold through this program actually cost more to the company than traditional marketing, the only difference is that you are more likely to convert someone to the brand which ads could not do as efficiently.

This is nothing more than a PR booster. I never once called it a marketing campaign, because it isn't.

Thank you for your explanation

[AndrewGS]

Originally Posted by fp115

But when GM was doing this last year, it was a mistake? I worked on developing the marketing model 2 years ago, it had good success with Saturn brands and the GM branded one. It did get the word of mouth going, but people only wanted to go to them to try out cars and have a BBQ. Saturn's event did generate a lot of sales, but it was certainly not cheap.

With events like this you need to look at all angles. Including the average marketing cost per unit sold. Events like this will likely generate a buzz that will attract a few thousand people, unless it is a one day event, in which it will attract a few hundreds. From those you can expect them to tell immediate friends, which on average is about 3 or 4. So depending on the size of the event, one that lasts an entire weekend and attracts 2,000 people will reach out to less than 10,000 people. And of those, only 20% of them have actually seen something. And of that 2000 it is not likely that all of them like the vehicle, so you can factor in at least 10% of the people to hate the vehicle, which roughs out to them telling the car sucks to 800 people.

Summary:
2000 people visit
tell 3-4 of their friends
10,000 find out about the car
200 people tell 800 of their friends it is a terrible car
You've reached 9,000 people
An event this size will cost about $375k.

With ads there is one message and it reaches in the hundreds of thousands and at times millions. There is no hands on approach, but is likely to sell more cars than such an event. Marketing is a science, you need to be unique, funny and daring. TV, newspaper, internet and billboard ads will never leave. Because they always give a positive message, unlike word of mouth marketing, which is more along the lines of PR.

Each event similar to this, a company can expect to sell around 10% of people that attend and to about 2% of people who heard it from a friend. You are spending more than $1k per car sold through this event. This doesn't even include the traditional marketing Ford will do for this vehicle, which usually adds on another $1k per vehicle, the average a company spends per vehicle is $1.2-1.3k through ad campaigns. Cars sold through this program actually cost more to the company than traditional marketing, the only difference is that you are more likely to convert someone to the brand which ads could not do as efficiently.

This is nothing more than a PR booster. I never once called it a marketing campaign, because it isn't.

The Astra thing? The night I went is was slow with few people there and the one other attendee I talked to was an import fanboi who was just there to drive the different cars as much and as hard as he could. His comment was that "it's not bad for a rental car" after taking my father and I for the most abusive ride I've ever been on.

As for me, I went to check out the bi-level halogen projectors and see how the interior felt and worked. I came away impressed at the handling, but unimpressed at the lack of options and the low fuel economy for the reserved power output. When pricing was announced I knew it would be a fail, but I had hopes that it would satisfy the people wanting a real German compact. We all know how that turned out.

[Bravada]

The thing is, Ford created a huge publicity buildup BEFORE the events started, so that people were interested in driving one. For Saturn, the drive events were to generate interest in the Astra - which, as the above explanation shows, does not work.

One important thing about the Fiesta is that it doesn't compete with anything else in the Ford empire - it is Ford's only supermini, and not a "rival design from Europe" that might take away sales from the "domestic" models.