Ford’s American Journey 2.0 – Redux

When I was checking @AJTheFiesta’s twitter stream the other day, I learned that AJ was hungry (“AJ needs food. (Fuel level is 24%)”), and was having a generally good day (“No rain…no pain! Current conditions: fair (day)”). For a split second, I forgot that AJ is one of two net-connected 2011 Ford Fiesta test cars on the roadtrip of a lifetime.

The roadtrip is the culmination of a yearlong Ford initiative called American Journey 2.0, a joint open innovation research project, supported by Microsoft and Intel, offering a group of University of Michigan students a chance to define the future in-car experience. AJ’s roadtrip started in Ann Arbor, Mich. and ended this past weekend at Maker Faire, the world’s largest DIY festival, in San Mateo, Calif. Since embarking on its journey on Wed., May 13, 2010 from the North Campus of U of M, AJ faithfully told us all about it one tweet at a time.

The American Journey 2.0 roadtrip is undoubtedly my favorite social media campaign of 2010. Ford, an iconic American brand that is busy becoming a boundary-pushing digital brand, has taken a great American activity, the roadtrip. and has reconstructed it into a multi-dimensional integrated experience that melds social connectedness, collaboration and innovation with brand heritage. This makes perfect sense for Ford, a company that knows its current and future consumer base for vehicles like the Fiesta are the Millennials –- the twenty-somethings who not only use social technologies, but perceive social connectivity as an inherent part of their day-to-day lives and expect automakers to embrace newer technologies as a way to communicate and sell more effectively to them. In-car connectivity is something Ford has been focused on since its 2007 launch of SYNC, knowing that these innovations are the price of entry for growing its consumer base. Enter American Journey 2.0.

But what works so well in this campaign is what attracted me to the world of social media marketing in the first place. “Social” success is about meaningful content, connection and authenticity, and Ford has extended beyond the traditional marketing message to deliver a program that has true social impact and meaning.

Two Ford Fiestas left the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, on May 13. During the trip, the drivers used four experimental social media apps engineered for in-car use, connected through cloud computing.

The American Journey 2.0 campaign speaks to our inborn human desire to find new and meaningful ways to connect to each other and our environment. As a result of this desire, social technologies have enabled us to create unique connections and relationships to most anyone — or anything — we can dream up. Ford capitalized on this “desire to connect” in a relevant and timely manner. Instead of launching a campaign that squarely focused on further promoting its revamped Fiesta model, or limiting their social media efforts to the Fiesta Movement, they produced an experience that used the brand as a vehicle (no pun intended) to elevate and enable dynamic, real-time community experiences and relationships (person to person, person to vehicle, vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to community, etc.) as well as novel new tools that enabled community collaboration. The key message for social marketers is an important one — AJ is a significant part of the story, but not the entire story.

For example, within this program, we are introduced to in-car apps such as CaravanTrack, which allows “caravans” of road-tripping vehicles to track each other (see related Headlightblog.com post); Virtual Road Rally, which allows users to identify physical points of interest along their route and share vehicle-centric data, such as the amount of fuel used; and “Auto”matic Blog, which allows the car to have a personality and share its moods/impressions based on data collected from various data sensors combining internal diagnostic readings with external events. Of course, don’t forget foursquare check-ins.

All of these tools –- the result of an engineering collaboration between Ford engineers, partners and the University of Michigan — were brought to life through a simple microsite that tied together the various social channels — Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc. — normally used to share and create real-time interactions and enable participation. Through these channels, the story of this unique journey took center stage and it invited us to participate in and explore the meaning and value of these new technologies and connections.

Yesterday AJ arrived at Maker Faire and tweeted that conditions were mostly cloudy but that someone named Gigi “loves AJ the Fiesta.” I’m sure that this campaign is only the first of many for Ford, and it will take on many new incarnations as Ford continues to explore in-car connectivity and its impact on enhancing our lives. If we aren’t hearing from AJ anytime soon, I’m sure we’ll be hearing from some other tweeting Ford vehicle in the months and years to come -– something as swell to me as a slice of virtual apple pie.

Image credit:
American Journey 2.0 image appears courtesy of Ford Motor Co.

Related links:

• AJtheFiesta on Twitter
• Ford and U-M use socially connected road trip to debut car as next platform for cloud computing; Ford Press Release, 5.12.10
• Maker Faire website
• Automakers Should Turn to Technology to Target Millennials, Reports New Microsoft Survey; Microsoft Press Release, 1.26.09
• Ford teams up with Microsoft to deliver SYNC; in-car digital system exclusive to Ford; Ford Press Release, 1.07.07
• Ford bets on social media for its next American compact; Headlightblog.com, 4.30.09
• Your car and the cloud; Headlightblog.com, 5.10.10
• American Journey 2.0 website
• Ford Fiesta Check In and Tweet Cross-Country; Mashable, 5.12.10