The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is hosting its annual conference this week at the San Diego Convention Center. Intense fog last night (a result of what a fellow traveler informed me is called “marine layer”) rerouted several planes headed for the city to Los Angeles International and the weather makes exceptions for no one — not even Ford Motor Company’s social media savant Scott Monty (@scottmonty), officially the company’s global digital and communications manager.

Had Scott Monty waited for the next available flight out of Las Vegas, where he was last night, he wouldn’t have arrived in San Diego until 8 PM tonight, said Lori Ann Pope, senior conference manager at the DMA. So Monty drove the 4.5 hours to San Diego, in time for his noon keynote presentation, “Putting the Car in Karma: Managing Reputation and Online Value.”

Monty joined Ford in July 2008 with the responsibility of building up the automotive company’s social media strategy. When he signed on, he told the audience, the company’s goal was to be the highest ranking automotive company in social media within three years. Luckily, Ford didn’t have to wait that long. Advertising Age published its list of “The Most Social Brands of 2008” and Ford came in at number 12, well ahead of the next competitor, Honda, in at number 25.

While 95 percent of the world’s population recognizes Ford’s blue logo, Monty said, the emotional connection was still missing. Monty admitted that even he, too, lacked that connection, and it wasn’t until he began to research the company and speak to its executives that he understood the talent and passion behind the logo. “You can’t manufacture passion,” he said. “If we could connect other constituents — suppliers, dealers, consumers — with that passion, then we’d have something worth spreading.”

Drawing from the Edelman Trust Barometer, Monty pointed out that globally, people  trust corporations 62 percent less than they did last year – in the United States, that drop is even higher at 77 percent. On top of that, consumer attention spans are at an all-time low – “We live in a 140 character world now,” Monty said, “and we have to think accordingly.”

William Ford, Jr. stepped down in 2006 and brought in Alan Mulally as the company’s chief executive officer, who drove (no private jet) to the bailout hearings and famously declared that he would “accept a $1 yearly salary if Ford takes any bailout money,” reported NY Daily News. In his presentation, Monty proudly dropped in the fact that Ford didn’t have to take any bailout money, for which he received a round of applause from the audience. Under the leadership of Mulally, Ford created its One Ford plan: One Team, One Plan, One Goal – a mantra spread throughout the company’s global presence.

“Our biggest challenge right now is not the product or technology,” Monty said. “People have a perception of The Big Three, The Detroit Three, whatever you want to call it.” So for the last several months, he said, Ford has worked to distance itself from its US competitors and align instead with international players Toyota and Volkswagen.

Reiterating the words of former CEO Bill Ford, Jr., Monty emphasized that Ford is “a green, global, high-tech company that’s improving people’s lives.” According to Monty, 70 percent of Ford’s vehicles are recommended by trust consumer publications, and its customer service is ranked higher than any other automaker. And yet, he lamented, “the general public is not up to speed.”

And so, this is where social media comes in.

Like any other new technology, whether it’s the telephone or email or Twitter, it’s always going to take some getting used to. Monty argued that social media is enabling Ford to make the company more accessible and increasing transparency and authenticity. As a result, Ford is relating to consumers on a human level. Makes sense. After all, if people tend to trust “someone like me,” then why not try to be one of those people?

“The new era of direct marketing and direct response is happening in real-time on these sites,” Monty said. It’s important to note that social media doesn’t replace traditional marketing models, rather it’s simply integrated into all existing efforts in an attempt to better engage, inform, persuade, listen, and respond to consumers.

Ford “set its content free” with the launch of its Digital Snippets Web site, which breaks down its corporate press releases in the form of YouTube videos and Flickr images. He played on the fact that if you love something, set it free; if it loves you, it’ll come back (Though he jokes that Ford’s lawyers would argue, if it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it.).

So far the Digital Snippets have seen 1.2 million impressions on YouTube videos and tens of thousands of Flickr views, which have been re-purposed on mainstream media channels like The New York Times.

Monty also showed us a short video of CEO Allan Mulally who spent 60 minutes on Twitter answering consumer questions, allowing people to catch a glimpse into the personality of the CEO. (I admit it was pretty cute.) Monty has even gotten Ford’s lawyers to participate in tweeting.

Ford also launched a Web site called Ford Story, which boasts the tag line “Ford is different – Join the Conversation.” The site aggregates industry news articles, consumer generated stories, blog posts, Twitter feeds, etc., as a way to amp up the third-party credibility. In its “Submit Your Stories,” section, Monty claims that the company will post stories both positive and negative as a way to capture the full picture – though I wonder if “bad” stories will appear among Ford’s “Top Ford Story” or “Featured Ford Story.”

In a 2010 Mustang campaign effort, Ford partnered with global digital studio Filmaka to host a video contest for young, aspiring film makers (Members submitted almost 400 Mustang Story scripts. Ford gave $5000 to fund production for 22 Semi-Finalists. They each had 2 weeks to produce their film). Monty showed this video called Father’s Day written and directed by Jonathan Newman (It’s a tear jerker!).

I’m not sure how this strategy will pan out given the FTC regulations surrounding bloggers these days, but Ford has participated in a lot of giveaways with bloggers, some of which Monty highlighted:

• Comedian Mark Malkoff: Keys to the City
• Creative agency Plaid’s tour of social media in action: Plaid Nation 2009
• Couple who changed their name to Ford: Wedding Road Trip

Fiesta Movement: 100 people (active social media users) chosen out of 4,000 applicants to test drive the 2011 Ford Fiesta prior to its 2010 American debut (it’s already available in Europe). With the exception of a mandatory video submission once a month, participants have the freedom to share their experience in any way. The program, which started late April of this year, is already seeing great results:

• 4.3 million views of its 700 videos on YouTube;
• 540,000 Flickr views;
• 3 million twitter impressions;
• 50,000 hand raisers who say they are interested when the Fiesta is available for sale, and 97 percent of whom aren’t Ford owners; and
• 38 percent level of awareness, which is equivalent to that of other vehicles that have been out for 2 to 3years.

The amazing thing is that it was all done with $0 spent on advertising.

Monty showed an image of individuals who expressed their love for Ford as a result of their relationship with the company via social media channels like Twitter.

Questions from the audience echoed the typical concerns about social media: What do we do when someone says they hate us? “Everyone has horror stories no matter what,” Monty said. The beauty with social media is that now companies can see what’s being said and actually do something about it. He listed a variety of tools the company’s using to listen – Radian6, Google Alerts, Summize (Twitter search) – and added that because it’s impossible for companies to respond to everyone who says anything about the company, it’s important to pick and choose your influencers – sites like Compete provide stats on how engaged users are in the community (e.g., number of readers, comments, activity).

The goal, ultimately, is to make Ford as close to consumers as possible and getting them to tell the company story. The company will be launching around 45 15-second video spots which came out of a marketing research effort. Customers were to speak about their Ford experiences and only after the filming was completed, were asked if the videos could be used for commercial purposes. “A lot of our communication efforts,” Monty said, “will be real people telling real stories.”

You can find Scott Monty’s presentation at Slideshare.net/scottmonty