Indiantelevision.com Team

(26 December 2006 6:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Ford in the US is enlisting a Grammy-nominated hip hop artist, the star of Dreamgirls, an up and coming Canadian songwriter, full-size vehicle models, extensive TV ads and the company’s biggest-ever digital marketing push to launch the all-new 2007 Ford Edge crossover, with a goal of making 500 million consumer impressions.

The electro-pop song Miles ‘n Miles by singer/composer Dee is the soundtrack to the Edge TV commercial and the Internet home page, http://www.fordvehicles.com/edge. Since its debut on the site in mid-October, the song and wallpaper have been downloaded more than 29,000 times.

Korean music and soap opera star Ahn Jae Wook will appear in advertising targeting Asian American consumers, and a dance and rock remix of his hit song Forever will be available on www.fordvehicles.com/asia.

Ford Edge is also sponsoring Rolling Stone magazine’s top songs for 2006, which are downloadable, for 49 cents a song, at www.rollingstone.com/top100.

Radio commercials will feature Grammy Award-nominated artist Kelis singing her original song Push it to the Edge. Consumers can check out Kelis and reviews at www.fordurban.com beginning in January.

* Ford will sponsor a sweepstakes where the winner will see Grammy Award-winner and Golden Globe-nominee Beyonc? Knowles perform live in Mexico. Beyonce’s music will also be available as ringtones and other downloads at www.fordenespanol.com.

Digital Edge Drive Demands

The Edge launch marks Ford’s biggest ever commitment to digital media. Already, more than 6,600 customers have downloaded full product brochures from www.fordvehicles.com. More than 29,000 consumers have downloaded the Edge wallpaper and anthem “Miles ‘n Miles” by DEE and more than 350,000 consumers have “built” Edges on Ford’s “build and price” Web site.

New digital marketing initiatives include:

* Custom web portal hubs on AOL and MSN that include the Net’s newest content and social network techniques are now live.

* On AOL’s AIM social networking pages, Ford is allowing consumers to “Find their Edge” and learn about the exciting hot spots of their favorite cities.

* Edge’s equally large presence with “Ideas from the Edge” on MSN’s Windows Local Live (www.fordedge.msn.com) highlights great restaurants, entertainment, shopping and music and an Edge Bot to answer consumer questions.

* Advertising takeovers of the homepages of three of the highest trafficked sites: MSN, Yahoo! and AOL.

* In the Asian market, Ford is taking over sites such as sina.com and goldsea.com with the industry’s largest digital presence ever in Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.

* A Web site that consumers can access from their mobile phone to download wallpaper, the Edge launch video and product information.

* Edge brand messaging is integrated across a variety of console-based (XBox Live/Xbox 360) and PC games when connected to the Internet. For example, an Edge “billboard” may be visible on an outfield wall in the Major League Baseball 2K6 game.