It’s now safe to say that man vs machine has completely given way to man lives and breathes machine. If you take a moment to look around, you’ll notice that technology has infiltrated our lives to the point of a permanent tethering between us and our gadgets. Texting, navigation systems, social networking, e-books, i-Pads … you’re Amish if you’re not on board — and even they may be concealing navigation systems mounted in those buggies.
Ford Motor Company understands and has embraced this concept and now uses it as leverage to meet the demands of its current and potential consumers.
Rolling out was recently invited to Los Angeles to test drive the 2012 Ford Focus during what’s called an “All Media Drive Program” and the way the company infused technology into the experience was proof positive that the top brass at Ford truly get it.
The fact that many of the gadgets we rely upon today were included in the design of the vehicle (which will be reviewed later) aside, Ford wooed journalists with an entire day of technological nirvana.
Here’s how the experience went:
The journalists were greeted at the airport by a rep who used an airline GPS app to determine exactly when our respective aircraft pulled up at the gate, enabling to-the-minute retrieval.
We were immediately transported to the event reception location and were handed individualized ipods programmed to capture data used to tally points in a Ford product knowledge scavenger hunt.
We had lunch, which would normally include a long presentation about said vehicle and instructions for the day, but instead technology changed the program. The presentation came in the form of an interactive video that we watched while being transported to the rendezvous point for the test drives.
We loaded into our assigned vehicles, which had a predetermined route downloaded into their navigation system to guide us along the winding roads of Malibu and beyond.
As a midpoint pitstop, we met at a location where stations were set up that focused on specific features of the car, including a body sensing video game that emulated an important aspect of the vehicle’s operation. Once interaction at each station was complete, the personalized iPod was used to scan a barcode that added points to the scavenger tally.
At the end of the event, which culminated in a game room wonderland, the iPods were collected and the participant that racked up the most points were handsomely rewarded for their “focus” on learning and retaining information on the features of the vehicle.
–gerald radford
