I'm not sure how many more cars it will sell, or whether the online test-drive experience will actually make the decision to buy the car any easier, but it's certainly a clever publicity stunt! I can only imagine how much traffic Mitsubishi will drive to its site!
Companies that produce physical products have always had a harder time linking their web presence to the product experience. Car companies have started doing a great job connecting the in-car experience to information available online. Mitsubishi has turned this concept on its by taking the website experience out to the car.
I find projects like this to be very curious, especially when thinking about them within the context of IT strategy. Something that is prevalent in many business IT environments, is evaluating IT as a cost center. Much like other organizations within a business, IT has a responsibility to manage its resources efficiently, position itself for future success, and add value to the organization's bottom line. I'm by no means suggesting that IT needs to limit its scope to less flashy initiatives like data management, collaboration, and security, but it must invest enough in these areas to make them functional and efficient before taking on reach projects like online test drives with such an unknown ROI.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I'd expect that this project is being implemented by an interactive vendor, which would lead me to question cross-group resource allocation within the organization. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'll be surprised if Mitsubishi doesn't look back on this effort at some point in the future and decide that these resources shouldn't have been invested more responsibly elsewhere.