Mashing is flattering

It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

In the digital space someone wanting to play with your concept is generally considered to be a good sign of engagement and resonance with an idea.  The tweaked version is often referred to as a mash-up.

I've mentioned several times how great I think the Spotify / Fiat 500C partnership was, but today it's hats off to Peugeot.  They clearly recognise smart thinking when they see it.  Whether Fiat will feel flattered or not by a concept that so clearly ressembles their own I know not....

...but as with all good mash-ups it's a variant on the original: The Peugeot Drivesexy Spotify playlist adds a chart / voting element that goes beyond the Fiat 500C (original) campaigns notion of song nomination.

There are 20 tunes in the "Drivesexy Tunes Most Popular Today" playlist which is a little different from the 2.5k in the Fiat 500C Playlist but there's every reason to believe that it is a daily play list (I'll be checking tomorrow) unless the inclusion of "She's like the wind" from the Dirty Dancing sound track is entirely co-incidental and unrelated to Patrick Swayze's death yesterday.(Update: It does refresh, new tracks today 17th Sept, including the one I submitted)

In my humble opinion though they might be missing a trick: Fiat did a great job of combining involvement with the opportunity to build a relationship. Peugeot let you submit a track without any sign up (I had to try of course), only requiring you to submit details if you were bothered about winning an iPod (which I wasn't, I've got 2 already). Arguably no sign-up = less barrier to entry, but also less ongoing value to the brand as it's a wasted opportunity to build a relationship, in a world where relationships with consumers are becoming more and more desirable and valuable than ever before.  Fiat flagged their presence on Twitter and have been using it to talk to me on an ongoing basis.  Bravo! No Fiat pun intended. Honest.;-)

Ongoing happiness thanks to Fiat 500C

Yup, as predicted in my original post about the Fiat 500c Happiness playlist on Spotify, 2 months later I'm still regularly listening to it, albeit I've also recently added some other "shortcuts" from Sharemyplaylists.com. I'm also looking increasingly fondly at the Fiat 500's I see around and about and whilst changing my Mini is on the cards, trading it for an even smaller boot really isn't practical so it's just going to have to be unrequited love, for now at least.

They ended up with 2498 submissions to their playlist (double click it and then double click within Spotify, & get in touch if you are in a Spotify market and would like an invite) which is not bad for a week long campaign. Then, having got people to engage with them, thumbs up for having twigged the importance of follow up in relationships. They emailed me just a few weeks later about their BIG SMILE event. Sadly I was away and couldn't make it, but they've been smart enough to put photos up on their website:

Then yesterday, I got a tweet announcing the voting is open for the Fiat 500C Top 50 feelgood tracks. More ongoing reasons for me to engage with the brand (I duly voted of course).

Shortcuts within shortcuts. Makes a huge amount of sense given Spotify's recent release of the iPhone and Android app. I'm looking forward to adding the Fiat 500C top 50 happy tracks playlist soon.

Bitesize is good on mobile. Especially given the purported short-ness of battery life for iPhone 3GS.

I'm looking forward to my next Fiat 500C smile-instigator.

Let the people create the content and let the brand reap the benefit

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of Spotify. I'm also a fan of many things Italian. So happiness is when I see the two put together in a way that brightens my day and in all probability will brighten many many days to come too.

Bravo Fiat! They're running a multi-media campaign for their Fiat 500C (c for cabriolet), which has ticked lots of boxes for me in the world of smart use of the digital space. Ok, the summer may not be living up to it's name, but we all like the idea of wind in our hair and soft top cars. Apparently the UK has the greatest penetration of cabriolet cars in Europe. Yet arguably one of the most variable climates.

So what have they done? Created a campaign that harnesses the power of music to make us feel good, with a platform that facilitates participation via the creation of playlists / songs on demand & then got the consumer involved in an easy-to-engage fashion to create content that the brand derives benefit from. Brilliant.



So far, in the 5 days the campaign has been running, 1926 tracks have been submitted, and there've been numerous people commenting via Twitter. The smart thing about this campaign is that not only do I get to feel involved because my track has been included in the playlist with minimal effort involved in contributing, (so I feel part of the 500c Spotify community), but because in a time pressured, information overloaded world I now have a ready made playlist to listen to full of tracks that make people smile. Better still is the fact that I now have an easy default option of something jolly to listen to when I can't be bothered to make an active decision. I regularly default back to playlists I've been sent as long ago as February when I first started using Spotify.

So for Fiat, they stand a pretty good chance of remaining on my radar for months to come, and bringing a smile to my face time after time. Good for them. And they didn't even have to create the content, just facilitate its creation, which for me is a good illustration of a brand that has understood the social media space. It's part of that letting go of control thing that brands are having a hard time grasping. You don't always have to be in control to reap the benefit.

So cheer up your Friday, listen to what the people say make them smile (You'll need to have downloaded the Spotify app first, then doublc click on link /500c playlist icon that appears on LHS of the Spotify window). It's eclectic but that's part of the fun. Open the sun roof this weekend, crank up the stereo, and pretend you are nipping around Rome in a soft top Fiat 500c. It doesn't take much imagination for that combination to conjure up a smile.