Chevrolet’s SXSW Road Trip Challenge

By Christopher Barger
Director, Global Social Media

For many of us, some of the fondest memories of childhood (or even adulthood) involve the great American tradition of the road trip. For many in the social web, some of the fondest memories of their time in the digital community involve the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas every March.  We at Chevrolet saw an opportunity to pair up these two great traditions and have some fun – and bring our social community along for the ride. So we’re happy to announce “See the USA in a Chevrolet: A SXSW Road Trip.”

Starting the week of March 8 (the week before SXSW), eight  teams of social media folks from across the United States will embark on a combination  road trip/scavenger hunt competition from their hometowns to Austin behind the wheel of some of Chevy’s newest products. Along the way they’ll need to complete 50 “challenges” in order to determine the winner. The winning team will be the one that not only has completed the most challenges, but has done the most interacting with their community on Twitter and their own sites. But what’s really going to be fun is that you get to help us decide all of the tasks the teams are going to have to complete along the way!

Here’s how it works: starting today and running through February 28^th, we’re asking you to submit your ideas to @chevrolet on Twitter, or to facebook.com/Chevrolet, of the challenges you’d like to see the eight teams complete on their trip. We’re selecting 10 tasks  from each of five different categories:  Charity (ex: stop at an animal shelter and walk the dogs), Collection (ex: collect a sample of water from a famous body of water near you), Physical Challenge (ex: climb a rock wall, or stuff your trunk full of balloons), Interaction (ex: meet up w/one of your followers and give them a test drive, or get a group of people to sing a famous song, flash-mob style), and Digital Image (ex: take a photo of a cactus or rock that looks uncannily like one of your team members). We’ll take our favorite 45 ideas that come in to @chevrolet or to the teams involved, and make them required missions for the teams on the road trip. (We’re going to pick one challenge for each category ourselves; hey, it’s our promotion, so we get to pick at least one, right?) On March 8, when the teams are starting to head off to Austin, we’ll reveal the 50 missions – and then you get to follow along and see how they’re doing!

Over the next few weeks here on (FastLane/Chevy’s Facebook page), we’ll be profiling each of the eight teams competing in this road trip challenge so you can get to know the contestants a little better. Since the teams are going to be collecting ideas for challenges from their fans and followers as well, you’re going to want to keep a close eye on them on Twitter in the next few weeks to get a sense of the kinds of things they’re coming up with.  Here are the eight teams and their captains’ Twitter IDs:

• Team Detroit: Henry Balanon (@balanon)
• Team Lansing: Betsy Weber (@betsyweber)
• Team San Diego: TrendHunter.com (link) (@brassfield )
• Team Chicago: Tim Jahn (@TimJahn)
• Team Atlanta: Tessa Horehled (@tessa)
• Team North Carolina: Jason Keath (@jakrose)
• Team South Florida Tammy Camp (@tammycamp)
• Team New York Brian Simpson (@rshotel)

We’re looking for your most creative, most off-the-wall ideas (within reason of course; no one should be put in harm’s way, no one should be getting naked, no one should be doing anything that humiliates another person… you know, keep it fun but tasteful).  So let’s hear from you at @chevrolet on Twitter, or at facebook.com/Chevrolet !  And in one month, it’s on to Austin, and on to SXSW!