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Pontiac and Yahoo! Leverage Social Media to Create New Form of Dialogue with Consumers


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SUNNYVALE, Calif.--The Pontiac division of General Motors Corp. and Yahoo! Inc. today launched a new online destination for Pontiac owners and enthusiasts, Pontiac Underground (www.pontiacunderground.com). The Web site combines some of the best social media content from Yahoo! including Flickr photos, Yahoo! Answers, Yahoo! Video, and Yahoo! Groups with consumer-created Pontiac content from hundreds of Pontiac fan communities throughout the Web. This initiative is a key component of Pontiac’s broad community-marketing initiatives for 2007 as well as an important demonstration of how Yahoo!’s social media assets can enable an open dialogue for Pontiac and its customers.

Pontiac Underground, designed in partnership with interactive agency Digitas, provides enthusiasts – a community of modifiers, car-magazine subscribers, do-it-yourselfers or people who are just passionate about cars – with an aggregated view of the online conversation happening about the Pontiac brand and gives them the ability to participate in the dialogue by uploading, commenting and voting on content.

"With Yahoo!'s leading social media platform, it's exciting to finally be able to bring our GTO fans, G6 fans, Solstice fans, old Firebird or Chief fans, Vibe fans – ALL Pontiac online communities together," said Pontiac Marketing Director Mark-Hans Richer. "Pontiac Underground is almost all consumer-generated - it's their community, we're just trying to add to it."

Consumer-generated content is in high demand among car buyers; according to a recent Yahoo! Autos study, conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, the vast majority -- 94 percent -- of car buyers who use the Web believe consumer-generated content is an important source of information to use when deciding between vehicles. The study’s findings highlight the importance of delivering social media offerings for consumers and automakers alike.

“As a pioneer in social media, Yahoo! is always looking for ways to connect people to their passions,” said Jennifer Dulski, vice president and general manager, Yahoo! Autos. “This new platform delivers on a largely untapped opportunity for brands to use social media tools to engage in conversation with consumers in an authentic and appropriate way.”

Pontiac Underground’s features include:

  • Videos and Photos – Leveraging Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) and Yahoo! Video (http://video.yahoo.com), users can view and add to extensive galleries of Pontiac videos and photos of cars. These galleries allow users to see relevant multimedia content aggregated from across Yahoo! and the Web.
  • The Latest News & Information – With Pontiac Informer, users can see the latest articles, links and information from other sites, submit their own directly, and rate them up or down. Additionally, this feature also pulls relevant Pontiac links from deli.cio.us.
  • Knowledge Sharing - Leveraging the knowledge base of Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com), Pontiac Underground provides a place for users to get the answers they are looking for, as well as share their knowledge with the community.
  • Creating Offline Connections – An aggregated list of Pontiac clubs, Yahoo! Groups and events allows users to connect both online and offline.
  • Official Blog – Named “Inside Track,” Pontiac will use this platform as its primary means of communication with its enthusiast audience. The “Inside Track” blog will provide users with exclusive news and images directly from Pontiac.