• by Karl Greenberg , December 16, 2015

In a freelance, ride-share, SpaceX world, it makes sense for brands to experiment with a la carte, digital finger-food that maybe doesn’t originate at — and sometimes doesn’t even involve — their creative/media AORs.

One example: Fiat is working with crowdsourced-creative studio Tongal for a new campaign called The Fiat Owners' Stories Project. In a nutshell, the campaign comprises seven 3-minute videos featuring real Fiat owners who talk about their lives, passions and cars. 

The work on the project started this past summer, when the brand tapped its Facebook following and Tongal collected the owners' stories, then used independent filmmakers around the world who are in Tongal's network, to pitch to make the videos. The films will, per Fiat, be used in brand campaigns across across social and traditional channels, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and the Fiat Nation website, starting Dec. 16.

“Working on the Tongal platform, we are able to develop a new storytelling model that matches our brand advocates with independent filmmakers in order to develop the loyal following for Fiat in the most natural way possible,” said Casey Hurbis, head of brand communications for Fiat North America, in a statement. “This person-to-person brand of storytelling allowed us to find authenticity and break through with narratives consumers aren’t accustomed to seeing in the automotive space.”

James DeJulio, Tongal’s cofounder, president and CCO tells Marketing Daily that this is the first time that the company, which has done work for brands like GE and Lego, has worked with Fiat. "Fiat came to us but we also worked with their agency on it. Typically when we do work, it's for the brands directly." He says the way the company does its "authentic stories” projects is to navigate different stages of creative development, kind of like what an agency does. "In the normal Tonga project there's the writing process and recently we have figured out how to take the writing phase and turn it into a personal-story phase.” 

DeJulio said there were about 100 submissions for Fiat owners, with Fiat and social agency Mediabrands Publishing deciding which of them would be chosen as subjects. "And our directors around the world pitched in an open call through our network. " Will there be a chapter two to the campaign? "We are talking about how to build the next one of these right now."