Power to the People & Pontiac

I read in a MediaPost article that Starting February Pontiac launched a new marketing strategy that basically leaves it up to the people, its called Pontiac Underground. There taking on an underground, viral marketing method using a social commerce strategy to reach into the companies fans.



They are implementing all sorts of media capabilities and launching campaigns on second life and myspace. The community hub on Yahoo will allow fans to share photos and videos of their pontiacs using flickr and Yahoo video. They also started up an opinion poll, and blogs called "Inside Track" and the "Pontiac Informer."

The company feels it will give all pontiac users a chance to meet and share with eachother, allowing for them to find out what it really is that the consumers want, like and dislike in the pontiac cars. And there getting results, the article shows that within the first hours users were already posting pictures and videos of there modified cars.

I think its a cheesy idea, but overall why not? It's a no brainer for both yahoo and Pontiac who are both benefiting from the move. Yahoo is opening itself up to a huge niche and Pontiac now has the power to get its up to date news out to the right people and make enthusiastic consumers feel like they are a priorety.

Overall, i'm suprised that they are the first to implement such a powerful consumer research tool. KUDOS to Pontiac, they might be on to something.