±±¾©Èü³µpk10

The car giant has chosen 100 young, web-savvy Generation Yers, and is loaning them the new Ford Fiesta for six months. In return, Ford has asked them to post videos of their adventures on YouTube, Flickr and Twitter.

Ford says it will not seek to control these videos.

The car-maker is calling the campaign ‘Fiesta Movement', designed to generate buzz in the US about
The campaign starts later this month, almost a year before US consumers will be able to buy the Fiesta.

It's part of the battle to get back in a target market dominated by rivals such as Toyota and Honda.

More than 4,000 applications to become Fiesta ‘agents' were submitted, with an excess of 640,000 views of applicant videos on YouTube. Ford did background checks that included investigating the applicants' driving histories.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that amongst the 100 agents is a Los Angles bicyclist "who talked about his free pancake breakfast at Denny's and a college trio who disco-danced while their cars' hazard-lights kept time".

Ford is pining its hopes on a successful US launch of the Fiesta in 2010 as it tries to become becomes less reliant on pick-up trucks and SUVs.

Getting the green light for the campaign within Ford was difficult, the WSJ reports. The newspaper says the chief sceptic was Jim Farley, Ford's global vice president for sales and marketing.

But Farley's reluctance apparently faded when sons and daughters recruited from Ford's largest dealers voiced their support for the six-month online effort. "The interest in the web [campaign] had far exceeded my expectations," Farley is quoted as saying.