Fiat Brazil has launched an online social media initiative to gather ideas from the public for a new concept car called the ‘Mio’ which will be presented at the 2010 Brazil Auto Show. The format is less design focused than say Peugot’s long running contest, Fiat is looking for ideas that make a car personal.
Several rounds of questions will be posed to the Mio community, the first being about features and design. Later, users will be asked for branding and marketing ideas while he engineers review the design submissions. Progress on the project will be posted and the community will be asked for focus in on giving more specific technical recommendations.
Brazil was chosen as the home for Fiat Mio because it’s a digitally sophisticated and innovative market, and Fiat’s largest after the company’s native Italy. Fiat is Brazil’s No. 1 car maker, with a 24.8% market share, and the country’s fifth-largest advertiser, spending about $80 million a year.
[via adage]
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This sounds like they are trying to repeat the success of the “500 wants you” initiative: exactly a year before the launch of the new 500, Fiat launched a campaign and went online with a website asking the public to contribute design ideas on how to personalise the new models. They published all the proposals and a selection of them actually went into mass production and can be seen today in the streets. It was a huge success and the website has been kept live as a Fiat 500 enthusiasts community: http://www.fiat500.com/eng/.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:30 am