
Ford Motor Company, which has been with "American Idol" as automotive sponsor for all nine seasons of the Fox hit, is adding car customization to its involvement with the show during this
season. Central to the program, which involves a promotional on www.AmericanIdol.com, are 12 versions of Ford's new Fiesta, which goes on sale this summer, based on designs by the 12 Idol
contestants.
Ford says four of its young designers reviewed questionnaires from the "Idol" contestants, traveled to Hollywood to meet with them and helped each contestant develop the
Fiesta design. The vehicles -- actually mock-ups of the vehicles -- were shown during an episode of the show last week about the process by which the contestants dreamed up the customized cars with
Ford.
As part of the program, Ford is holding a "Ford Music Video Challenge" for 12 consecutive weeks. The 12 winners each get to choose one of the "Idol"-designed cars for themselves, which
Ford will then build for them. They also win a trip to the set of a Ford music video shoot for the show, and the show's finale.
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"This is really building on what we have done before -- you will
still see vehicles each week on Ford music videos, but this is different because we were able to bring in our designers to customize these vehicles," says Connie Fontaine, manager, Ford brand content
and alliances. She says that Ford's goal is not to get as much TV screen time as possible, but rather to drive consideration with Web-based elements so that the brand isn't too obtrusive during the
actual show.
"A lot of what Ford does around 'Idol' is online," she says. "We thought it was important to seed the idea in that first week of the top 12, then do integrations in music videos
and with a very strong online integration as well. We want everything we do on air to feel relevant, credible and organic."