NF500 / 500 Marketing

The award-winning Fiat 500, which has received countless honours this year, adds an extra important one this weekend – its first birthday celebrations.

Although it only arrived in the UK in January this year, the popular supermini was first launched in Italy on 4 July 2007, and the Fiat Group is celebrating its anniversary with a series of bold, elaborate parties across the world, including the UK.

The date of this landmark occasion is especially significant as last year’s Italian launch of the car was exactly 50 years after the original introduction of Dante Giacosa’s classic post-war 500.

The UK party, hosted by TV presenter Alex Zane, is called the Fiat 500 PicNic and takes place at Alexandra Park, North London. It’s designed to be a traditional British summer outdoor gathering, but with a special 500 twist.

With invitations extended to more than 5,000 specially-invited Fiat 500 drivers and potential owners, this Saturday’s (5 July) PicNic initiative, which was conceived to share the passion and emotion of the huge Fiat 500 community, will feature live music, delicious Italian food and drink, outdoor games, big-screen sports coverage and special ‘chill-out’ zones for participants.

The London event is part of a series of global parties celebrating the hugely successful first year of Fiat’s iconic city car. Athens, Budapest, Copenhagen, London, Milan, Munich, Palermo, Paris, Rome, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Valencia, Hel, Liège, Zurich, and Cape Town are the chosen cities that, either in parks or on beaches, will welcome thousands of people brought together by the new car.

Music, art, and fun are the ingredients which will guarantee a successful event involving new Fiat 500 owners and those who are still waiting to get one (222,000 have been ordered so far).

This is a global initiative that we in Britain are delighted to be involved in,

says Andrew Humberstone, managing director, Fiat Group Automobiles UK.

It is everything that the new Fiat 500 stands for – fun, excitement, freedom and the knack of bringing people together in a great atmosphere – and I am sure the event will be a great success.

The London party will feature four special themed zones – Energy, Entertainment, Chill and Children. The Energy Zone offers outdoor games, fun races and a volleyball competition, while in Entertainment there will be live music, jugglers, a giant screen and Fiat 500 interactive car configurators to try.

The Chill Zone is designed for relaxation with Tai Chi, head massages and hammocks all available, and the Children’s Zone will feature face painting, street theatre and games.

You may remember a while back a Tracey Emin Fiat 500 went under the hammer for charity and sold for £42,000.

Well, despite recent tales of doom and gloom surrounding the economy in the media recently, her latest Fiat 500 to go up for auction, this time a little number titled “Dark, Dark, Dark”, sold for an incredible £200,000.

Absolute Return for Kids charity (ARK) raised £25 million for children at a gala reception in the Royal Naval College, Greenwich last week, with an auction in which this one off Fiat 500 was included.

Thanks (once again) to top news spotter KevinB for finding out the sale details.

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has once again stressed his desire to relaunch the Fiat brand, and the Cinquecento in particular, in the USA; if only they could find a way to sell it.

Apparently Fiat are seriously considering following in the footsteps of Smart by teaming up with a dealer network with a strong US base to distribute the 500 in America. This would ideally lead to an established and trusted brand stateside offering a foot in the door for Fiat, who haven’t had their own dealer presence there for 25 years.

In an article published on Just-Auto.com, Marchionne is quoted as saying

I am convinced that the full range of the Cinquecento would be a huge smash in the US if we do it right…. I think the full Cinquecento product range is a brand within a brand and can probably carry the market - we’re looking real hard at this now.

Fiat representatives have been quoted in the past as wanting to emulate the success of the MINI Cooper stateside, however MINI had the distinct advantage of a ready and willing BMW dealer network who put not an inconsiderable investment into making the brand a success, with the aid of some very clever marketing. It will be interesting to see how Fiat can make waves to the same degree without a strong parent company to piggy back on.

Fiat has revealed another weapon in their onslaught of publicity stunts, this time taking the form of enormous interactive bill-boards placed in the heart of berlin, at the site of Checkpoint Charlie on the corner of Friedrichstraße.

Passers by (or just anyone who reads this and has the ability to do so) can send a text message (to number 84000 password “Fiat 500″), and said message will appear scrolling across a 20 metre metre message strip, as well as appearing like on the official Fiat 500 homepage. We’re assuming they’re monitored for decency prior to being emblazoned on a huge picture of the Fiat 500!

Apparently this latest clever piece of marketing is part of Fiat’s wider strategy to involve Fiat 500 fans from around the world, carrying the rather wordy slogan “500 people’s car, created by the people”.

This interactive “advertising cube” was created by Fiat in partnership with the communication experts Carat Wiesbaden and the agency Magic Touch of Hamburg.

This isn’t the first time the Fiat 500 has benefited from some quirky PR in Berlin, previously they took their smart thinking underground to celebrate Fiat’s victory at the 2008 Car of the Year awards.

There’s been a few posts about this on the new Fiat 500 forums here at NF500, so we thought we’d give one of Fiat’s latest Italian initiatives a little more coverage here too.

The Fiat 500 Pop Up Store is a temporary store devoted entirely to the new Fiat 500, is open now and will remain so until July 31st 2008. So if you’re in the area, you might want to pop buy and check out the Fiat 500 goodies on display.

Apparently the Pop Up store has set its intentions on being much more than a simple car showroom, and will offer free wi-fi to visitors, as well as numerous special events related in some way or another to the Fiat 500, some directly, and some artistically “inspired by” the Fiat 500.

If you reach Milan before August you’ll find the store Located in De Tocqueville No 11.

Fiat has shot a publicity film in a Moroccan salt lake on the border of Algeria, which shows vehicles from the Fiat range all racing together to form a giant moving Fiat 500 outline.

The tag line takes that annoying sporting and business phrase of “110%” a whole lot further by claiming that every Fiat is 500% Fiat, and is supposed to reflect how every car is significant to the image of the brand, of which the Fiat 500 is supposed to be the embodiment.

The commercial is already on YouTube, and presented below for your entertainment and delight (or something like that anyway).

Exactly 50 years on, a group of Fiat 500s will once again return to historic Liege in Belgium – leading a 10-day celebration of one of the greatest endurance rallies ever.

The Fiat 500s, dating from the 1950s, are part of a stunning entry list confirmed by organisers of this July’s Liege-Brescia-Liege rally which, in 1958 was unique. Then, the challenge comprised 3300km of gruelling roads, including treacherous mountain passes through the Alps, Dolomites and Yugoslavia, driven flat out – and all in cars of less than 500cc.

This year, when the rally is reborn as part of the 50-year celebrations, Fiat will be providing support in the form of a transporter full of new Fiat 500s, the vehicle that shows small cars can be fun to drive while offering fuel consumption of just 4.7 litres per 100 kilometres (50 mpg). Any classic microcar breaking down during the rally and not able to be repaired swiftly en route, will be swapped for a new 500 so that the crew can continue to enjoy the event.

Rally organisers and technicians will also use a fleet of Fiats, which will offer receptions for competitors at overnight stops along the route, including Liege, Karlsruhe, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Ljubljana, Bolzano and Brescia.

Liege-Brescia-Liege 2008, organised by ClassicRallyPress Ltd pays tribute to this pioneering attempt to prove the practicality, durability and usability of tiny cars that were often dismissed as ‘city cars’.

In 1958, 36 cars entered the event but only 13 finished, and they included all seven of the 500s that started the rally. The 500s eventually placed 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th and 13th.

A 1958 report showed that the total engine capacity of all 13 cars that finished the event was less than that of one typical American car of the time – yet the 13 cars had transported 26 adults 2000 miles over tough terrain, non-stop for three nights and two days.

This may be considered the first environmentally-conscious car rally, and the 2008 event sets out to prove once again that you can enjoy an unforgettable drive across many of Europe’s most beautiful mountain passes even in a small-engined car that is frugal on fuel.

The Liege-Brescia-Liege Rally 2008:

Starting from Liege on 11 July, the celebration rally covers the same 3300km/2000 mile route as the 1958 event, including Europe’s toughest mountain passes, combining evocative names such as the Stelvio and Gavia with less well-known but equally challenging roads like the Vrsic in Slovenia. Overnight halts are: 11 July Karlsruhe, 12Munich, 13 Cortina d’Ampezzo, 14 Ljubljana, 15 Bolzano, 16 Brescia, 17 Bolzano, 18Munich, 19 Karlsruhe and 20 Liege.

Cars that would have been eligible for the 1958 event will compete for awards in classes of 250cc, 350cc, 425 and 500cc – an additional ‘Spirit’ category welcomes cars up to 700cc and of a type built up to 1968, again divided into capacity classes. The rally is organised by ClassicRallyPress Ltd with the support of the Royal Motor Union of Liege, which coordinated the 1958 event.