Holden have made social media the centrepiece of its campaign for the launch of its new Barina Spark. 

Targeting young female drivers, the campaign allows users of the new car’s website designerspark.com.au to personalise their own Barina Spark and share it on Facebook. All entries go in the running to win a new Spark car.

Holden have also called on a few famous females to inspire users’ creativity, with media personalities Yumi Stynes, Charlotte Dawson and Emma Freedman, netballer Sharelle McMahon, and others designing their own Barina and video documenting the process.

Holden marketing director Philip Brock said social media was a fitting medium for the new product.

“Barina Spark drivers will be stylish and fashion-savvy,” he says, “and we love the idea of giving women the opportunity to express themselves through their most notable fashion accessory- their car. The competition integrates and utilises Facebook, which provides the perfect mechanism to share each unique design and spread the word about the new Barina spark.”

The social media effort brings to mind the recent ‘Jazz packing’ campaign for Honda Jazz. Earlier this year, DTDigital created a series of light-hearted videos demonstrating the spacious interior of a Honda Jazz. The videos, which directed to a dedicated website with competitions to win a Jazz, rapidly spread virally and racked up close to a million YouTube views.

Honda digital marketing manager Corinne Wilson says it was a successful incursion into digital.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with how it went,” Wilson tells Marketing magazine. 

“The amount of views we had, the amount of entries to the competition we had, and the awareness it raised well and truly exceeded our expectations”

“We wanted to get in touch with a more youthful audience that you don’t usually see being targeted with automotive.”

“We know the importance of the website in the purchase cycle of the vehicle, but also for the brand itself, we’ve got to make sure that if our customers are using social media, we should be too.” 

But Wilson warns that brands shouldn’t get too close to every part of a consumer’s life.

“We don’t want to use it in an interfering way. I don’t think it should be used just for the sake of it, I think social media got our idea across in a way that would not have been as effective with traditional.”