Fiat is going to build and promote its 2010 Mio concept car based on ideas of consumers submitted via social media.The company's website asks "In the future we're building, what should a car have that makes it mine, while still working for others?"
It has prompted 1,700 ideas and more than 40,000 comments, mostly about things like putting bamboo on seats, or providing an outlet to charge laptops. The company plans to ask for branding and marketing ideas next. Fiat has yet to decide whether it will ever build or sell the thing for real.Phew.At best, it's a stupid marketing stunt.
We, ahem, professionals have been told that social media is the coolest invention since the printing press, and that all those consumers who used to watch our commercials on broadcast television instead are using it to talk to each other, create their own content, and coalesce into crowds that pass judgment on fact and truth.
The Fiat campaign plays right into these presumptions.So what happens when only a handful of consumer-submitted ideas make it into the final concept, or the crowd wants specificity on what percentage of the Mio is UGC? As any manager or parent knows, you don't ask for expertise from people who don't possess it; the answers are usually somewhat off, or outright doomed, and then you get blamed for having revealed your respondent's shortcomings.
Crowdsouring a car makes as much sense as asking for tweets on designing rockets or curing diseases.And then there's the issue of follow-up. By focusing on an imaginary participation -- "I know you care about healthcare, so how would you perform brain surgery?" -- Fiat leaves itself no obvious next step, no sustainable purpose for the community it presumed to invent.
It could have focused the conversation on services, and built an going component of tasks and rewards into it. Again, I know that probably wasn't the purpose of the stunt, but leaving on the table the expectations for real, meaningful conversation could hurt it in the long run.The scarier possibility is that Fiat actually means it.Can't they remember the Edsel? It was the car that came about as close as being crowd-designed by endless polls, surveys, and focus groups, and it gave consumers exactly what they asked for...and they hated it. Most businesses have recent memories of similar experiences, though less notably embarrassing.
Conducting research and then acting on it as a literal guide is a huge mistake; it rarely works, if ever, because people don't know what they want, at least not specifically, and certainly they don't know how to get it. They cite what they have already been exposed to, what they already know, often times devoid of understanding or context.So talking to the crowd isn't original or direct research, it's secondary and derivative of what others have said.
To suggest that its conclusions are new, let alone directionally useful, would be laughable, presuming Fiat isn't taking it seriously.The Bulb Asks:What are you willing to truly outsource to the crowd, and why?Considering the vast majority of social media "users" consume it as inertly as they did traditional media, what do you expect them to do?Conversations are funny things, so are you clear on where you want to end up before you start? Do your customers want to end up there, too?
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