Archive for the 'Nissan' Category

Nissan Sentra Gets its YouTube On

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

new_sentra_frprt.jpgBrand: Nissan Sentra (Nissan)
Execution: TV, Blog
Target: Young Drivers
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David

Description:
Nissan creates a new TV campaign for the Sentra featuring San Francisco native and photographer’s assistant Mark Horowitz living in his Sentra for a week. The seven spots are each entitled “A short film by Marc Horowitz”. Each is narrated by Mr. Horowitz and features his different experiences during the week. Horowitz adopted the following rules for his Sentra challenge:

I also set a bunch of rules for myself so the project is a little more challenging and has some boundaries. Here they are:

  1. I must live 7 straight days out of my Sentra. I am free to come and go from the Sentra as I please.
  2. I must not return to my apartment at any point during the 7 days.
  3. I must assume my normal day-to-day responsibilities including work and all scheduled client meetings.
  4. I must personally prepare at least 4 meals within the immediate vicinity of my Sentra.
  5. I must go on at least one date. Hopefully more.
  6. I must not let anyone else drive my car for the 7 days.
  7. I must sleep in a different location each night. Once the location is chosen I must not move from it.
  8. I must not set foot outside of my car for any reason from 12am to 5am.
  9. I must host at least 2 social functions in my Sentra. One must be on or after Day 6.
  10. I must maintain the highest standards of personal hygiene.

The spots bias towards comedy with Marc Horowitz showering in a sprinkler, cooking in a parking lot, going on a date with a girl who asks “Do you live in here?” and setting up an amateur autocross.

What Works:
We were most interested in this series of spots because it appears to have sprung from ethnographic research by Nissan. Adweek reports that the genesis of the campaign was a study of photos of Sentra owners which revealed that many of them were using the cars as rolling closets, carrying sports equipment, gym clothes and food among other things. That insight combined with the explosion of user-generated video on sites like YouTube and MySpace persuaded Jan Thompson, Nissan VP of Marketing to challenge Marc Horowitz to live in a new Sentra for a week and report back about it.

The spots are well executed and walk the tricky line between documentary filmmaking and advertising reasonably well. There is no pretense that the challenge and the spots are intended to do anything other than promote the Nissan Sentra, which helps. The spots are funny and engaging, which helps even more.

Most importantly, though, Nissan has reconceived the ‘product-as-hero’ form of advertising in a fresh new format. Instead of talking about the Sentra’s roominess or describing its bluetooth hands-free dialing, we see Marc Horowitz sleeping in the car and ordering pizza. This strikes us as a much more sensible way of showing the ‘permission to believe’ for the brand proposition than stating claims like “most interior volume in its class’ outright. The conventional approach always sounds to us like a comedian getting up in front of an audience and saying, “I’m really funny – ask my friends.”

The brand positioning here is around the user. Instead of trying to find someone to showcase a user demographic, Marc Horowitz personifies the psychographic profile of the user Nissan wants to embody for the Sentra. And it works. It is very difficult imagining Honda or Toyota following this route with the Civic or the Corolla.

What Doesn’t:
Six agencies including Omnicom Group’s TBWACD, OMD, Tequila, The Vidal Partnership, Edelman and The Designory were involved in this campaign. Given that and the slick production values, effects and professional editing of this spot make us uncomfortable with the tag, “A film by Marc Horowitz.” We do not know what part of the creative and editorial process Marc Horowitz assumed but unless he was the actual director (which is somewhat harder to imagine with the collection of high-priced talent that must have been surrounding him), then this campaign is not a series of independent films by Marc Horowitz. This damages the authenticity of what is otherwise an excellent effort.

We also think the blog is a bit bare for the musings of someone who had a full week to spend in his car (presumably with some of the time spent by WiFi hotspots.) This also raises the spectre of outside authorship, as does the involvement of PR giant Edelman which has been recently outed as the backer of a pro-Wal-Mart blog.

We raise these issues because we feel that when large brands venture into user-created content, transparency is absolutely critical. This advertising blog does not feel that collaboration between an individual and advertising agencies is necessarily bad. But to properly evaluate the product, consumers must understand how much of the work is the individuals and how much is the brands. Numerous relevant questions are left unanswered by this campaign including how Marc Horowitz was chosen, whether he has created independent films before and who exactly was filming him. While these questions would never be answered in the TV spots, we would expect to read more in the blog.

Branding Bottom Line:
Nissan gives us My Life, My Car with a little too much new car smell.

Posted in news, Nissan | 7 Comments »

Nissan Versa: DTC Advertising Spawns a Tribute Genre

Friday, September 29th, 2006

nissanversa1.jpgBrand: Nissan Versa
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: Reluctant mini-car buyers
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David

Description:
A campaign with several executions. The reviewed spot starts with a large man jammed into a tiny car. “It’s too small – car’s too small,” he says. We see him breathing into a paper bag as he hyperventilates. The voiceover says, “Auto claustrophobia – it’s taken a devastating toll. But its days are numbered,” At this point the action freezes into black and white and the voiceover announcer walks onscreen. “… thanks to the Nissan Versa. Versa treats small car symptoms with best-in-class interior space.” The seen shifts to the same tall man inside a versa where he has room to breath. “Now this is roomy!” he exclaims and we see an exterior shot of the car driving past wide open plains. “Versa lets you be carefree and handsfree with bluetooth technology,” the announcer says as the big man whistles happily and remarks “I like that” to the bluetooth comment. “Versa will help you take control of auto claustrophobia today.” At this point the man crumples up his paper bag and tosses it into the back seat. Then we see him spinning around while holding a puppy in a field of flowers holding a puppy. A title “Nissan Versa, 36mpg” appears. The spot ends with the voiceover announcer saying, “Ask a Nissan Dealer if Versa is right for you,” and the Nissan Shift 2.0 logo.

What Works:
It is more than a little ironic that the much-disliked and often-criticized direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising genre allows Nissan to create this spunky and effective little campaign for its new micro-car Versa. This spot does an excellent job of parodying the breathless, melodramatic tone of DTC advertising (our favorites were the ads for ‘restless leg syndrome’) while showing the high points of a new car class to American consumers. The deadpan voiceover, over-acting sufferer and freeze-action misery shots all contribute to the authenticity of the satire. Two more moments we particularly like in this spot are the logo shot for the Nissan Versa which says, “Nissan Versa 36mpg” and the final shot of the man holding up a puppy and spinning around in a field of flowers. The logo shot looks exactly like a pharmaceutical name and dosage and the puppy shot is a dead-on parity of Claritin commericals (Claritin is an allergy drug).

The heavy lifting this spot needs to perform is twofold. Although tiny cars are the norm in most of the world, the genre is virtually unknown in the U.S. outside of the Mini. The Mini is sold through BMW dealerships, is not cheap and has cult status. It has ended up with more of a performance reputation (for precise handling), so it has not firmly established the micro-car category in the minds of ordinary economy car buyers. The other entries in this category, the Honda Fit, Scion Xa and Toyota Yaris are all new and struggling to establish themselves in the consumers mind.  In addition to building the category, Nissan needs to position the Versa as the category leader.

This advertising blog believes Nissan does an excellent job of creating the brand positioning of ‘Smart and Spacious’ for the Versa by showing that class leading technology like bluetooth can be integrated into a small package and that a big guy can fit in a small car. Bluetooth integration is a small product feature but one that perfectly proves out the brand positioning.  The space issue is obviously the thrust of the entire spot and it is relatively effective although we think the object may be to elicit unbelieving reactions which are satisfied by a dealer visit.  Consumers may still be surprised when they step into these cars and realize that there is literally no trunk space (the rear seat converts to storage space), but it will at least engage them with the category. And the category benefit of high gas mileage and low price will be interesting to thrifty consumers who cannot afford a Prius.

The shot selection, pacing and casting for this spot are all excellent. And we are happy to see that Nissan is pooling it out into a campaign which follows the model of this spot closely.

What Doesn’t:
There is some danger that the parody might overwhelm the message in this spot. It really is enjoyable to watch this spot just for the well-earned dig it takes at pharma advertising. But if consumers fail to realize that they’re seeing the emergence of a new class of car on American roads the campaign will have failed. We don’t think this is a huge problem, but it is one to track.

Branding Bottom Line:
Nissan gives us the cure for small car blues – now what can they do for our bursitis?

Posted in Nissan | 4 Comments »