Notes from the Facebook generation: Focus on the driver, not the car

For the recently released FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report, we conducted an online panel survey of more than 1,000 tech-aware consumers to understand how they used the social, mobile and increasingly dispersed Web. The research showed us that social technologies had caught on big time, across more varied users and uses than imagined.

Throughout the report we referenced this “Connected Consumer” research in articles such as Mad Widgetry, Twitterific, Advertising as a Service, and my own contribution, Designing experiences for the Facebook generation, which covers the lessons the Facebook Generation has to offer the general business community. In this post, I pick up from that last point, taking a special look at the lessons the Facebook generation has for the automotive industry and its digital experiences. The main theme running through it all: put your customers at the center of your digital experiences, not your products. The following are several ways to do that:

1) Understand the “Facebook thing” is not just for Scion fans anymore
The “Facebook Generation” is a term used to describe the group of digitally savvy and socially focused consumers.  The term is a bit of misnomer, though, as we found in our second annual Digital Consumer Behavior Study. This group actually crosses normal age-based generational bounds. Interestingly, online social behavior is found across all age segments and actually skews slightly older. So, it’s not just teenagers and college kids who care about social media; it’s also your average BMW 7-series or Cadillac XLR-platinum driver, too.

2) Put the driver in control
While most automakers’ websites have done a great job appealing to our intellects and our adrenal glands with their car tech specs and beauty shots, few have worked to appeal to the real reason we buy a car: we can see ourselves in it. Test drives work so well because they literally put us behind the wheel. It’s hard to forget the joy and horror at seeing your fuel consumption on a Prius dashboard or the feeling of heart-flutteringly strong and smooth acceleration you get while shifting  gears in a Porsche Cayman.

Though it’s not quite like being there, the web experience is getting close. Explorations in virtual test drives, such as the one for the Toyota Yaris, which is depicted here, prove something inspiringly human, yet still evolving, is on its way. And campaigns that place a driver in your virtual test drives – such as with Oddcast or BigStage technology – could push it even further.

3) Leverage your greatest asset: your current drivers
Another way to go is through a proxy. Commercials and movie + TV product placements, such as Ford’s Test Drive Challenge commercials and the BMW Films efforts, offer this. They show us that someone like us – or, better yet, someone we aspire to be like – enjoys driving a particular car.

With the proliferation of brand ambassadors (Seal for Audi, Heidi Klum and Seal for Volkswagen, Christina Aguilera for Mercedes Benz,) MTV Cribs-style video, and even TMZ and YouTube clips of the famous, infamous and nonfamous, there’s plenty of opportunity to leverage all sorts of videos, photos and stories to showcase a car brand’s particular breed of buyer.

Jeep does this well with a combination of amateur and professionally created materials loaded on in its Community section – and they seeded with a few simple, cheap API calls to Flickr, Facebook, and the like. And the Gen Y darlings, Scion, do have an example to share, too, with the a “Culture” section containing the broadband bBtv microsite, as well as user-generated “tweaks of the week” and more.

4) Leverage the wisdom of the local crowd
Finnish scholars sought to further define who really influences car-buying decisions and found that people are most influenced by the people who watch them park in their driveway: their 10 closest neighbors.

So, another way to tackle this social craze is to go local. Use IP-sniffing, mapping mash-ups, self-selection, or that valuable registration and ZIP-code dealer referral information to help people connect to their location and explore what people in their region, city, and even neighborhood are buying (then take it a step further and include what they’re saying through reviews and user-generated video, too.) This could be like a more contextually integrated (and, therefore, relevant) and delightfully surprising version of Best Buy’s Shop Local experience.

In the end, whether you go direct, through a proxy, or even to the neighbors, the biggest lesson is to go social and include your drivers (of any age) and their aspirations and social lives in your digital experience. It may provide some color and some cost savings, and it may just sell more cars.

Related links:

• FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report; 10.28.08
• Razorfish Digital Consumer Behavior Study; 10.21.08
• Yaris Virtual Test Drive
• Ford Test Drive Challenge
• BMW Films
• ‘Seal’ of approval for Audi; MSN Autos, 01.07.07
• Heidi Klum, Seal take on role as new Volkswagen brand ambassadors; Auto Spectator, 09.27.07
• Mercedes-Benz A-Class commercial with Christina Aguilera; YouTube, 05.15.08
• The Jeep Community
• Scion Culture
• Social influence and consumption: Evidence from the Automobile Purchases of Neighbors; The Review of Economics and Statistics, 10.17.08
• Best Buy’s Shop Local

Image credit:

• Meet the Connected Consumer image appears courtesy of the Digital Design Blog
• Yaris Virtual Test Drive image appears courtesy of Toyota.com