Subaru posted a new micro site on Facebook yesterday called “First Car Story: The Greatest Car Story Ever Told.” It’s an interactive site that allows you to create a personalized animated story about your first car. I played with it yesterday, and found myself admiring how they integrated social sharing, user-generated content and a Facebook contest to promote the new Impreza. Check out my story of the Rat Mobile or create your own.
It first showed up in my Facebook News Feed because at some point I Liked Subaru (probably under a Colorado state mandate).
The concept of telling the story of your first car is brilliant from a user-generated content standpoint. In America, a car is second only to country and pie. Everyone remembers their first car, for better or worse. Telling your own story of joy, freedom or flaming crash and burns is easy and enjoyable.
The process looked fun, but I was further motivated to participate by the associated contest. Writing and sharing the story allowed you to enter a contest to win a new Impreza.
The interface allows you to type in your story while it automatically emphasizes words but you can also choose to select what matters to your story. Once you’ve waxed poetic about your first whip, you can select a soundtrack and choose to record a voice over. Within the story you can also tag Facebook friends, encouraging you to share memories and add another level of social connection.
The program is “brought to you by the new Subaru Impreza” and a graphic with the Impreza remains in the lower right corner throughout the process.
You can post the completed animated story to your Facebook page, tweet it or email it. You have to share the story in some way to enter the contest to win a free car. Double motivation: sharing something clever and personal, and possibly winning a prize.
The investment it took to develop this site must have been enormous. As of today, it has 161 Likes, 28 Comments and 21 Shares. That’s not exactly “going viral”. It will be interesting to keep an eye on the content and contest to see how successful the effort becomes considering how well the marketers at Subaru integrated different strategies to promote the Impreza.