Ford's Fiesta Movement campaign: not enough transparency?

Is it OK to find folks who aren't necessarily raving fans, give them a chance at a great adventure and pass that off as authentic marketing as part of a social media campaign? Or is it more effective and impactful to simply find and connect with people who are already raving fans?

Ford Motor Company is not spending your tax dollars on a new social media campaign called Fiesta Movement:

The Ford Motor Company is taking a new approach to social media marketing and tapping young trendsetters to help spread the word about the new European Ford Fiesta. The campaign is part of a partnership between Ford, digital think tank Undercurrent and AMG, a Colorado-based partner of Undercurrrent.

With the new campaign, deemed the Fiesta Movement, Ford has invited 100 young people to live with the car for six months. These agents will be given special missions for driving the car and report on their findings on a variety of social media sites.

The missions are designed to be fun new experiences that they will report on through their Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter feeds.

Fellow Gen Xers, this one's not for you. The road for this one leads to Ys.

The cross-platform approach those selected will use to share their adventures -- blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. -- is a very cool integrated use of social media.

And it's also a little scary for Ford, I'm sure. A few folks there will be nervous over the next six months as new content comes in.

Or will they? We don't know what kind (if any) contracts the winners had to sign. We don't know what level of control, if any, Ford has over the content.

And therein lies the problem for me.

The campaign -- as highlighted by its web site -- has a very slick, high-dollar, agency-finished feel to it. There's more feeling of centralized, corporate control than I'd like for such a large-scale social media endeavor.

Will the Gen Ys take to this campaign? Or will it lack the authenticity and transparency that has made social media so appealing to begin with?

A campaign like this lacks the credibility and honest impact that would be delivered by Ford's genuinely raving fans. For my money, I'd rather find, connect with and share the experiences of those fans, as opposed to holding a tryout on YouTube where the winners get tossed the keys, a camera and a gas card for six months.

(And yes, I realize the car is not available in the U.S. yet. But surely there are plenty of European fans whose experiences would translate over