It’s that time of the year again, where I’ll be taking a look at the most exciting automotive campaigns of 2010.

Toyota Conversations – Crisis Management

Back in March, Toyota delt with negative backlash from the massive safety recalls of its vehicles. The Japanese auto giant launched a branded channel on TweetMeme in partnership with Federated Media, aggregating and organizing Twitter conversations regarding Toyota in an attempt to repair its image.

The site brings together the top stories being Tweeted about Toyota, from news articles to press releases. The site also shows visitors the most popular videos and images being shared about Toyota on Twitter. And the channel includes a Featured Tweets from Toyota’s Twitter account and press room as well as AdTweets, Tweetmeme’s retweetable ads for Toyota.

It’s definitely interesting to see a high-profile company taking to Twitter to try to reform its image by engaging directly in a dialogue with consumers.

Live Every Litre, a pan-European campaign supporting the launch of the new Honda CR-Z

I worked on this campaign earlier this year, looking after the French and Italian markets. Grey London, WOM agency Wildfire, and 90:10 Group were tasked with creating a groundbreaking social media campaign that would engage a new, younger audience for Honda Motor Europe’s launch of its new sporty hybrid car, the CR-Z.

To reach the target audience of young, social-media savvy Europeans, the agency team came up with the creative platform, Live Every Litre. The end goal of the project was to use social media to create the world’s first crowd-sourced documentary film – including the content, cast and music – while offering real people the opportunity to fulfil the personal journeys they’ve always wanted to make.

The end goal of the project was to use social media to create the world’s first crowd-sourced documentary film – including the content, cast and music – while offering real people the opportunity to fulfil the personal journeys they’ve always wanted to make.

Live Every Litre on Youtube

My personal highlight was the premiere of the documentary in a Southwark car park where I got to meet Sergio Lanfranchi and Simone Attanasio (who designed my blog logo) who both blogged on the project and have become very good friends.

Seat Sex Drive – battle of the sexes

Back in July, SEAT Sex Drive launched a branded entertainment/online reality show battle of the sexes, pitting eight men and women against each other under the captaincy of Jack Osbourne and Emma Willis. Driving-based auditions took place on Facebook with hopefuls challenging a friend of the opposite sex to take part.

The competition saw the selected teams going head to head at a racetrack showing off their handbreak-turns and parallel parking.

And guess what? Women won!

Ford Explorer Facebook reveal

New cars are always revealed at auto shows; it’s just the way the industry works. American automaker Ford might have made a significant enough impact with its 2011 Ford Explorer Facebook Reveal to forever change the status quo.

Earlier this year, Ford bucked with tradition and turned to Facebook for an exclusive reveal that included massive build up, along with launch day videos, wall question-and-answer sessions and chats with executives.

By the numbers, Ford garnered 50,000 “Likes” on the Explorer’s Page, saw 11,000 YouTube video views all in a single day.

Stats aside, the true testament to a successful campaign is whether there are copycats. Sure enough, the luxury automaker Bentley shortly followed suit with its own online reveal.

Mini Countryman – pack your friends to win a car

I am not a big fans of ‘Like to win’ Facebook pages as I don’t believe that ‘liking’ equals engagement equals ROI. That said, there’s always a page or an app which stands out from the crowd.

Back in August, Mini offered fans a chance to win the New Mini Countryman via a cool Facebook app. Fans had to invite as many of their friends as possible to join them in a Mini for their An interesting Facebook app where fans could win the New Mini Countryman by simply packing as many of their friends from other social networks 5Twitter, Facebook and interestingly LinkedIn, to win the car.

Slick.

Ford toys with Promoted Tweets

Earlier this year, Twitter launched their Promoted Tweets, a way for brand to advertise a 140 message on Twitter. Ford, immediatly jumped a bandwagon in a rather innovative way. Rather than promoting their own message, they asked Mack Collier if they could use one of his tweets. Smart huh? And the results in terms of ROI were pretty interesting, higher than the average clickthroughs for email, Google AdWords, and Banner Ads. Read Mack Collier’s post right here.

Interestingness

As some of you may know, I’ve been primarily working on the Ford Kuga and Ka nameplates over the past 7 months and wanted to share a couple of initiatives I am proud of…

Ford Kuga hooked up with artist Popbang Colour to create a painting of the Ford Kuga. Coverage appeared in major automotive sites and spread as far as Italy, The States, Russia, and NZ.

Last but certainly not least, Ford Ka/ TONI&GUY launched a nationwide integrated campaign back in October, touring shopping centres around the UK on the hunt for the most stylish people in the UK. The ‘Discover a Style you’ll Love’ activity, encourages shoppers and Toni & Guy customers to enter a competition, uploading a stylish photograph or video of themselves, to win a Ka for two months and the opportunity to take part in style adventures created for them by a team of four fashion bloggers, The Clothes Whisperer, The Style PA, FabFrocks and My Fashion Life.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/fordka

So here’s the class of 2010.

Feel free to leave me a comment with any other cool automotive campaigns that caught your eye!

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