Inside Mercury's online films project

DETROIT -- Mercury is calling its first foray into online filmmaking a success, saying that traffic to the automaker's Web site hit record numbers in the two weeks since its first Web series, "Meet the Lucky Ones," debuted Nov. 1.

'Meet the Lucky Ones' is an ongoing series of Web videos that track events involving 10 different characters.


A spokeswoman said more than 825,000 unique visitors went to www.mercuryvehicles.com in the first two weeks of the five-week series. The marketer's Web site typically gets roughly 200,000 unique visitors per month.

25% of total budget The Ford Motor Co.-owned brand has been advertising the film series online and in limited print ads to drive people to the separate-branded site: www.meettheluckyones.com. Mercury is simultaneously advertising in traditional media for its long-awaited new models in a separate push themed "New Doors Opened." John Fitzpatrick, general marketing manager of Mercury, said he's spending nearly 25% of his total marketing communications budget on digital and customer events.

"Meet the Lucky Ones" follows the interrelated lives of 10 people, whose stories will evolve over five different weekly episodes. Visitors to the site can click on each person to watch a short video of what's happening in that person's life and learn more clues about his or her background.

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