Ford Courts “Your Ideas” Via Social Media

Ford is going digital – and launching a social media initiative today: “Your Ideas” at www.thefordstory.com. Users are being encouraged to engage in dialogue about the automotive space. This is the latest in efforts from the company to leverage ideas from outside of Ford and the car industry, and is labeled an "open innovation model."

Ford has been creating a community of assorted non-automotive tech experts, universities and suppliers to contribute to their marketing, planning and research activities.

“Ford continues to push the envelope when it comes to engaging consumers in what’s next for Ford cars and trucks,” said Mark Fields, Ford President at the opening of the SAE World Congress today. “We are going beyond traditional consumer market research, studies and focus groups.  Ford is turning to the social Web as an innovative way of generating new vehicle feature ideas customers really want and value.” 

The best ideas generated in “Your Ideas,” and flagged by users with the most “thumbs ups,” will be reviewed by teams from Ford. The troubled automotive industry is in a general mode of reaching outside the core car community to consumers in general, as well as software developers and tech companies as evidenced by the SAE World Congress theme, “Ecollaboration.” 

Ford is already working with students at the University of Michigan on a research project, the “American Journey 2.0” creating responsible social networking apps for Ford SYNC, its in-car connectivity platform behind the MyFord Touch driver interface. The brand also has strategic relationships with MIT, and Shanghai Jiaotong University and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“Innovation has always played a major role at Ford,” according to Gerhard Schmidt, Ford chief technical officer and vice president. “We don’t believe that any one company or industry has a monopoly on good ideas; we embrace the fact that every good idea for our customers doesn’t have to start with us.”

It is refreshing to have a major automotive brand courting consumers not only in the showroom or on the lot – but also in the front seat of social media.