Ford Wants Your Ideas

Ford Using Online Discussions For New Features

Consumers, Ford is listening.  The automaker's new online campaign "The Ford Story" allows anyone to contribute ideas to Ford in an online discussion format.  Other users can vote on the idea and ultimately the ideas could be turned into new features on future vehicles.

"Our job is to try and keep our finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the marketplace in terms of what people want for new features," said Rick Novak, head of Ford's Global Vehicle Marketing Strategy group.

Ford launched the "Ford Story" idea discussion section and since then over 2800 ideas have been posted.  Users can vote on ideas using a thumbs up thumb down system not unlike Facebook. 

"The immediacy of people being able to view ideas, vote on them and comment on them is very valuable," Novak said. "We collect all of the ideas posted. They are prioritized and then the top performing ideas are discussed, and they go out to market-research."

Users can also submit their personal Ford stories and have them shared with other users.  Stories range from dream cars to Ford pride.  One story comes from Josh S., pictured above, talks about his family's love of Ford for generations. 

"Growing up in the Metro Detroit area I always took great pride in that fact that my family always bought American and supported the home team," he said. 

Its clear Ford is listening to their customers.  Ford has been reaching out to fans in multiple new ways recently.  They had a user driven campaign for the 2011 Ford Fiesta and will launch the new Ford Explorer entirely through Facebook.