As the Australian car
industry gears up to the opening of the 2006 Australian
Motor Show on 26 October 2006, one car maker is looking
245 days down the track to opening day of the 2007 Motor
Show and the debut of the all new Fiat 500, the rebirth
of an automotive icon. And that original icon
will be the star car on this year’s Fiat stand, an
original bright red Fiat 500 to remind show visitors
just what made this diminutive car so special that it
has been voted the sexiest car of all time.
“Our special Fiat 500
is much more than just a classic car on display,” says
David Stone, General Manager for Fiat Cars in Australia.
“It is also part of a worldwide programme called ‘500
wants you’ that is encouraging everyone to have their
say in what the new 500 will look like in final form,
the colours, trim and equipment it will be offered with,
how it will be advertised and promoted and how it fit
into everyone’s lives. Fiat wants the new 500 to be
everything that everyone wants it to be!”
The Fiat 500 will make
its world debut at the Frankfurt International Motor
Show on 16 September 2007 and plans are afoot for it
make its Australian debut at the Australian Motor Show
on 11 October 2007. As a preparation for
what is one of the most significant launches in Fiat’s
history, the company has created a special
communications project has been created; known as “500
wants you”, it is an interactive multimedia platform,
created and developed in close collaboration with the
Turin offices of the Leo Burnett and Arc advertising
agencies.
This revolutionary
project uses the Web and extends to other means of
communication, with the sole objective of involving the
public in the design of what will be the evolution of
Italy’s most popular runabout. “500 wants you” is a huge
online laboratory, where users can discover the
stylistic concept of the new car for themselves,
expressing their preferences, proposing ideas and
contributing to its creation, in a combined, active
manner, for the first time ever. The www.fiat500.com
site will collect the contributions and expectations of
the public, which will be assessed and possibly used
during the development of the product. The “500 wants you”
site includes the “500ology”, the largest online
encyclopaedia of stories and pictures dedicated to the 500,
written jointly with the users; and the Concept Lab, a
virtual room where you can pay at modelling the Fiat concept
car, and register your ideas.
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The star car on this year’s Fiat stand in Sydney,
will be an original bright red Fiat 500 which is set
to remind show visitors just what made this
diminutive car so special that it has been voted the
sexiest car of all time. |
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As the Australian car
industry gears up to the opening of the 2006 Australian
Motor Show on 26 October 2006, one car maker is looking
245 days down the track to opening day of the 2007 Motor
Show and the debut of the all new Fiat 500, the rebirth
of an automotive icon. |
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|
But, as so
often happens on the Internet, the “www.fiat500.com”
site is a constantly evolving project, which will
continue to incorporate new contents, activities and
initiatives, as part of a programme that envisages
numerous updates during the 365 days leading up to the
launch of the new car, which will gradually be
implemented over the coming months. We must underline
that the www.fiat500.com site continues to be an
unprecedented success with the public, with over
10,000,000 pages seen to date. What is more, over
130,000 ideas for configurations, accessories and
customisation for the new model have been collected
through the Concept Lab. More than 17 proposals for the
homepage have been submitted, as well as 370 “Faces for
the 500”, a game inviting people to associate a facial
expression with a chosen part of the 500.
Previous initiatives
are about to leave the stage to other interesting
novelties: the “Designboom” competition has just
concluded, and the winning projects and the names of the
three winning designers will soon be made public. On the
other hand, videomakers are taking part in the “500 take
you” competition, submitting their own 90-second videos
that give a personal account of the 500, with a touch of
irony, optimism and high spirits. And finally, the five
finalists of the “500 wants a mascot” competition have
been chosen from the over 700 mascots published online,
and visitors to the site now have a month to vote for
the one they want to become the good luck charm of the
new 500.
Entertaining new
initiatives are continuously being added to the “500
wants you” site. One of these is “Speak 500”, a
multimedia archive containing over 50 audio files of how
the word “500” is pronounced in as many languages and
regional dialects around the world. The site will also
grow exponentially, thanks to contributions from users
who can take by part sending in the flag of the country
or region they come from, and the graphical
transcription of the term “500”.
The second initiative
is “Jingle Box”, a music player that makes everyone into
a musician, trying their hand at composing their own
soundtrack for the homepage. Users can access a proper
DJ’s console where they can select and mix different
musical bases, sound effects and over 70 vocal claims
(in Italian and English). The jingles created can be
heard immediately, recorded in the site archive, and
even downloaded onto their computers as MP3 files (so
that it will also be possible for people to transfer
their own creations onto their mobile phones or MP3
players). The “500 Screenmate” is
a program for people to download onto their computers,
which warns them with a pop-up every time an event
starts or a news item related to the world of the new
500 is released.
These exciting
initiatives are open to everyone, in full respect of the
philosophy of the “500 wants you” project: “a car
created for the people, with the people’s own ideas”.
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