customers are opting for high series models, and 65 percent are choosing the five-door hatchback. Among the top three color choices are Blue Flame and Lime Squeeze.
customers are opting for high series models, and 65 percent are choosing the five-door hatchback. Among the top three color choices are Blue Flame and Lime Squeeze.Searcy, 21, is one of 100 wired networkers around the nation that Ford is counting on to spread the word about a new car the company is aiming directly at Generation Y, also known as Millennials.
In 2010, Ford plans to introduce to the U.S. market its new Fiesta subcompact, a car it hopes will be a big hit with young people like Searcy. That is to say, folks more interested in gigabytes than horsepower.
In mid-May, Ford delivered 100 European-built Fiestas to young people across the country, including Searcy and two others in Texas. The “Fiesta Movement agents” were chosen from among thousands of candidates who submitted videos explaining why they should be selected.
Searcy, a full-time barista at a local Starbucks and student at Tarrant County College, figured she didn’t have much of a chance but took a shot — and won. In her entry, which can be seen on YouTube at tinyurl.com/mr4ano, she made the case for being “the perfect Fiesta Movement agent.”
“Why?” she asks on the video. “Because I live my life online.”
Searcy has a desktop and laptop computer in her room at home, running a webcam and networking servers. She carries not just the ubiquitous iPod, cellphone and digital camera, but also, thanks to Ford, a Kindle and a video camera.
Now Searcy is using all those channels to tell the world about the Fiesta. So far, her reviews of the car are favorable.
“I love all the features in it. Me being as technological as I am, it really meets my needs,” Searcy said. The Fiestas are equipped with Ford’s Sync, a voice-activated entertainment/telephone system, and USB ports for plugging in digital devices. She also likes the 32 mpg it gets in everyday driving around the Fort Worth area.
Searcy has her iPod and cellphone connected. More than a few of her fellow Fiesta bloggers have hooked up video cameras to broadcast their activities.
From Ford’s view, Searcy is part of a generation worth reaching.
“The Millennials are an emerging market force, with 11,000 reaching driving age every day,” Sam De La Garza, Ford’s small-car marketing manager, said in a statement. “It’s the most important demographic trend since the baby boomers, and it represents one of the greatest opportunities for Ford.” Continue reading ‘Ford recruits online social networkers to get word out about new car’
SUMMARY:
Whether it’s off to Vegas to get married, recreating a historic
event or turning their Fiesta into an ice cream truck, the Fiesta Movement “agents” are off and running on their first “mission.” Having completed immersion events about the Movement and their new Fiestas, the agents are ready to generate excitement about the highly anticipated Ford Fiesta, the new fuel-efficient small car that brings its style and substance to the U.S. next year. As part of an innovative social media initiative, 100 young trendsetters will test drive and live with a European-spec Fiesta for six months, traveling as agents on special missions, who then will relate their experiences through a variety of social media sites.
With keys in hand, the Fiesta Movement agents now are ready to start their missions and talk about their adventures. Each agent attended a two-day immersion event in locations across the country, including Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver and Seattle. Agents were given an intense course on everything related to Fiesta Movement including the history of Fiesta, operation of key features, and responsibilities associated with being an agent.
Each immersion event ended with the agents receiving their new Fiesta, customized with the color and graphics of their choice. The cars were delivered on a closed course allowing agents to get to know their Fiesta safely and remind them the program is about fun and adventure. Agents also received a technology tutorial to learn how to use Bluetooth® capability, voice-activated controls and the EasyFuel® capless fuel-filler system.
In addition, the agents were shown how to handle the European specifics of the Fiesta. For example, the headlight beams can be lowered or raised, unlike cars in the U.S. They also learned about British terminology so when the computer screen tells them the boot is open, they know it means the trunk. After receiving a pair of sunglasses to confirm their agent status and a second key to the car, the agents finally were sent on their way to start their Fiesta Movement adventure.
Continue reading ‘Fiesta Movement Agents Begin Monthly Missions’

Ford is soliciting applications for brand ambassadors who think they’re cool enough to be seen in the 2010 Ford Fiesta. That’s right, hombre. This Fiesta is invitation only.
Of course, the most recent incarnation of the subcompact isn’t your weird cousin Lester’s Ford Fiesta. The 2010 model (which Europeans have been able to buy since late 2008) won more international acclaim than Slumdog Millionaire and just may be the Little Car that Could for Ford. The Fiesta already has some significant buzz in the automotive press, but Ford thinks regular folks should hear about it too. That’s why they’ve started the Fiesta Movement – a group of 100 drivers who get the chance to drive and promote a German-built Fiesta before it’s official US debut. Applicants must have “a strong presence on the web, an ability to craft a compelling story through video, and a hunger for adventure.”
On a side note, we bet poor Lester didn’t even drive a Fiesta. Close your eyes and picture it: toothpaste green and looks like a Subaru Justy, right? Wrong-o, muchacho. That deathtrap was the Festiva, and it really was a piece of crap. Get your Spanglish right before you start hating on a hatchback.
Brand agents will be responsible for following missions that, according to Ford, will “take them to new places, to meet new people and to experience new things in their Fiesta,” all of which will be broadcast on the internet. (It’s a subcompact, so get your mind out of the gutter). In addition to the social marketing experiment, Ford will provide over 100,000 pre-launch test drives to interested consumers. “It’s one thing to talk about the vehicle, but it’s another to put people into it and let them experience it,” Ford’s brand content manager Connie Fontaine said in a statement.
Along with the added publicity, the Fiesta Movement is also a soft launch for a car whose arrival on US soil has been eagerly anticipated. “This is a way to give people an early hands-on opportunity to get excited about the Fiesta while providing valuable feedback to our engineering team,” Fontaine said.
The first hundred cars will be built at Ford’s plant in Cologne, Germany, which has been churning out European Fiestas since last August. Future US models will be built in Cuautitlán, Mexico. The testers will all feature the 1.6-liter Ti-VCT (Twin Intake Variable Cam Timing) gas engine, about which What Car? magazine says is “decently torquey when accelerating gently and cruising, but [it] loves to be revved.” Sadly, the ECOnetic isn’t making it stateside.
Photo courtesy Ford Motor Company
For most drivers there’s a lingering doubt when changing lanes on the freeway: Did I miss a car in the blind spot?
Starting early next year, Ford Motor Co. will try to eliminate that doubt. It will begin installing side-view mirrors on its vehicles that show the blind spots in the outside upper corners.
The Dearborn-based automaker and several industry analysts say they know of no other automaker that currently offers such a feature, although some are considering it and auto parts stores sell small mirrors that focus on blind spots.
“Those blind spots, changing lanes, we’re always having some challenges seeing who’s there,” said Jim Buczkowski, Ford’s global director of electrical and electronic systems.
Ford says it will put the mirrors on a few Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models to start, eventually making them standard across most of its lineup. It also will offer an optional radar-based blind spot warning system similar to those marketed by other automakers, but with the ability to scan parking lot aisles and warn of oncoming vehicles as a driver backs out of a space.
The additions come from research Ford did on customer wants and needs and is part of its campaign to be more customer focused, said spokesman Alan Hall. The new low-cost mirrors probably won’t add to the sticker price of a car or truck, he said.
Of 450 people who took part in Ford driving clinics, 76 percent thought the mirrors improved visibility, Buczkowski said.
Ford had to figure out a way to meet a federal standard requiring driver’s side mirrors to be flat, said spokesman Wes Sherwood.
Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis for the Power Information Network, a division of J.D. Power and Associates, said he has seen many drivers with small convex blind-spot mirrors affixed to their side mirrors. Ford, he said, is capitalizing on that consumer demand.
“It may seem like a trivial thing,” he said. “It’s obviously something in the direction of being customer-focused. I think that makes a lot of sense.”
The new feature is almost essential as automakers shrink the glass area on the side of vehicles to create new, sleeker designs, said Jack Nerad, executive market analyst for Irvine, Calif.-based Kelley Blue Book.
“The blind spot issue, I think, gets to be more and more an issue every day,” Nerad said, adding that some new crossover vehicles have small third-row side windows that make the blind spots even tougher to see.
Plus, families on vacation often pack their vehicles with so much luggage that it blocks the view out the rear window, forcing drivers to rely totally on side-view mirrors, Nerad said.
People won’t buy a car or truck solely because of the new mirrors, but they are a feature that could help sway an undecided buyer, Libby said.
“I think it’s sort of a cumulative thing,” he said. “It’s one more thing that would help. It’s a little thing, and those things add up.”
The federal government doesn’t track crashes specifically caused by drivers failing to see other vehicles in their blind spots. The closest it can come is a category called “failure to keep in proper lane or running off road,” said National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spokesman Eric Bolton. Those reasons were a factor for 16,470 drivers involved in fatal crashes during 2006, the latest year available, according to the NHTSA’s Web site.
In Michigan, state police recorded 27,294 collisions between vehicles heading the same direction in different lanes in 2006, about 9 percent of the total crashes in the state. In those, 12 people were killed and hundreds injured, said Lt. Gary Megge.
If all cars were equipped with the blind-spot mirrors, Megge said he is confident the number of crashes would be reduced.
“That tells me that potentially this could have an effect on nearly 9 percent of the traffic crashes in Michigan,” he said. “People don’t just change lanes when they know somebody’s there. When these sideswipe same (direction) crashes occur, people don’t see the other car.”
Ford isn’t alone in its pursuit of the new mirrors. General Motors Corp. and other automakers also are considering them, although GM hasn’t developed a timetable yet to put them in vehicles, said spokeswoman Angele Shaw.
“We have done some studies and we’re looking at where we’re going to use them,” she said.