Land Rover uses a Twitter Hashtag in marketing

Ben over at BBH Labs shared with us an interesting Keith Rhodes article about the NY Auto Show. Here is an excerpt from the article that I want to share:

This week automakers kicked-off the 2010 model year with exclusive reveals at the New York International Auto Show.  Land Rover has some exciting news for their 2010 vehicles and they are leveraging Twitter in a very unique way to connect Auto Show attendees with online brand and automotive enthusiasts in real-time.  Land Rover, with the help from Y&R/Wunderman, will be the first known brand to actively promote a Twitter hashtag in both traditional and digital media to build  discussion around it's new vehicles and to quickly distribute consumer generated content online. 

I'm surprised this is the first one. I've already recommended it for one or two of my clients but the push back comes from the number of customers that are currently on Twitter. We conducted some research and only 3% of my clients customers use Twitter. I argue that this 3% are the influencers among the customer group, they are the one's that will spread the word for us... but nobody has bought my argument yet.

Brands can still control the content on Owned Media websites but they can't control the content on Twitter. Are brands willing to let their Hashtag be tied to any comment? Do they really have a choice, the conversation is already happening? These are the barriers that will need to be overcome before Hashtags become mainstream like URL's did in the late '90's.