Friday night, my good friends threw me a party.  Never mind my birthday was in July.  The sentiment was awesome. Along with an excellent party at the Del Ray bar and grill, I was given a room at the social media friendly Hotel Max.  So I thought I would share some pictures from that Hotel.  The Hotel Max loves local art and claims to have more than 350 unique pieces.  It is located in downtown Seattle and was once the historical Vance Hotel which opened in the beginning of the 20th century.

The hotel was nice overall and the staff has been a participant in the local tech and marketing scenes so I would recommend it to anyone.  The downside is that it wasn’t super memorable. It was like a W that had a personality. Do my friends a favor go ahead and check in there sometime and see it for yourself.  Check out the pics below:

So that is it for Travel posts for a while.  Thanks for letting me share a little bit of my adventures with you.

Last week I was greeted by a handful of new followers on Twitter and in a unusual move I started flipping through some of the profile pages to see if there was anyone I should follow.  That is where I met a local video caster and “beautiful girl” from the movie 10 things I hate about you, named Bridget O’Neill.

I scrolled through her posts and found this:

Apparently I have been living in a hole for the last few months and missed this contest that Ford had to find real people to be “brand ambassadors” for their new 2010 Ford Fiesta. In theory this is a great idea, get real people to make the product a part of their lives before it is available widely.  But the more I read about the individuals involved and the program the less “real” these people seem.  According to the aptly titled article in Wired Autopia “Are you cool enough to drive a Ford Fiesta?” the real people needed to have a “strong presence on the web, an ability to craft a compelling story through video, and a hunger for adventure."

Now I understand that Ford wants exciting and compelling storytelling to help build the online and offline image of its new small car, but as with most “social media” based marketing efforts the persona’s look a lot less like “us” and a whole lot like the stars and pseudo stars that make up traditional campaigns.  For example when the ads for Microsoft’s laptop hunter ads came out the ads seemed cool because who doesn’t know someone who looks like Lauren.

But then Lauren turned out to be the actress we all knew her to be and the ads seemed less interesting than if they were actually giving some real person the challenge of finding a 1000 dollar laptop.  I think that Ford is certainly trying to do something very compelling compared to the contrived but cute MS ads, but it seems to me that when I look at the “agents” that have been selected they are very different from what one might expect when you read the press release:

Beginning in late spring, the chosen consumers, or “agents,” will be asked to complete “missions” in their Fiesta on a monthly basis and capture their experiences digitally and share them with Ford and other consumers. The missions take them to new places, to meet new people and to experience new things in their Fiesta Agents will be encouraged to take their friends along for the ride to share the experience and pass their comments on to Ford.

I am beginning to think it is more like a road rules for the social media set. So who is the target audience?  Will there be commercials featuring  our new found “agents”?  I don’t know.  But as I looked through the agents and checked out their Twitter profiles, YouTube Channels and Facebook pages I began to believe these “real people”  with a strong web presence were a lot less like the people who will drive these cool new cars and whole lot more like internet celebs. 

I am trying to imagine how different this site might look if someone like my aunt Cheryl (a current prius driver) was one of the agents. Like most of America she has heard of Twitter and Facebook, but she is a novice and these services are a novelty.  She does not have a regular video cast, although if she made one I am guessing that it would be funny.  She is not a part of a improve group or a “Inspirational (read: Christian) Comedian.” She works for the Air Force, has two teenage daughters and lives in North Dakota. Unlike her 28 of the 100 Ford movement agents are in California and are experts in social media.

For me the power of the medium of the web is that we can meet “normal people”.  And the truth is a campaign like Ford’s is a novel way to tell stories about this new product.  However, those of us that are most likely to pay attention are also most likely to ignore and pan the potential outcomes of the lifecasting that the agents share on twitter and in video.

Here is my advice

Let’s actually find real people and let them use your product as they really would in real life.  “No Missions” allowed.  Unless of course that mission is to pick up diapers at 2:00 in the morning or driving across the 520 at 5:00 when you need to get to a meeting Capital Hill you are already 10 mins late for.  The web is a really cool playground and I love that Ford is trying to think outside the main stream but lets move past the Road Rules meets Amazing race. 

Granted the “agents” for Ford have just gotten their vehicles, but I haven’t seen much to compel me to pay that much attention to the web site.  I have followed Bridget on twitter and she seems pretty cool (She was a ignite Seattle last week.) and I don’t mean any disrespect – plus I do want to see the car.  But finding out that the participants have successful podcasts and video blogs takes the charm away and reminds me that Bridget like “Lauren” is an actress. 

It just marketing.  The social media aspect is just a new hook on a very old game.

Jeremiah Andrick