Nissan drives for style — and substance — with new ads
Nissan has launched a sweeping new ad campaign aimed at redefining Japan’s No. 3 automaker in the U.S. as a company with exciting cars and crossovers that puts safety first.
The automaker hopes the new campaign, called “Take On,” will grab the attention of consumers and help the automaker surpass a mandate set by CEO Carlos Ghosn of surpassing 10% of the U.S. market share. The ads largely show Nissan’s cars and crossovers deftly dodging, bobbing and weaving through all sorts of obstacles to demonstrate their performance and safety technology.
“The car is always shown beautifully, heroically, driving with precision and performing exactly as they should in real life,” said Jeremy Tucker, Nissan’s vice president of marketing, communications and media.
The scope of the campaign is extensive. The first of eight new ads began debuting during the NBA Finals; another eight ads will be released in July; and another 20 spots for use in local markets are under development.
Tucker said the new campaign was sorely needed because Nissan suffers from a major marketing problem in the U.S. — the lack of a clear identity.
“When I looked at the brand, I felt that brand is ill-defined. It’s not consistent. It’s gray,” said Tucker, who joined Nissan in 2014 from Disney Consumer Products.
In January, Tucker and his boss, Christian Meunier, decided to bring all four of Nissan’s ad agencies together for two weeks to overhaul Nissan’s marketing. Meunier also was unimpressed with the automaker’s marketing when he took charge of Nissan’s U.S. sales and marketing in January.
“We’ve spent billions of dollars on advertising in the past few years ... and our brand is very vague,” Meunier told Automotive News in March.
Meunier, who also is chairman of Nissan Canada, and Tucker locked a group of about 35 to 40 marketing and advertising professionals from four agencies in a room for about two weeks to generate new ideas.
Those agencies included Nis- san’s main brand agency, TBWA\ Chiat\Day, its secondary agency Zimmerman, multicultural ad firm Fluent360 and media buying agency OMD Worldwide.
The agencies were told to think big.
“The benchmark is not automotive marketing. The benchmark is the larger world of marketing,” said Tucker, who believes the automotive industry “traditionally would stick to tried and true methods” for much of its marketing and advertising.
The idea that emerged was to develop commercials that show how Nissan’s cars and trucks can help consumers overcome everyday challenges and obstacles — ranging from potholes and bad weather to simply running late to dropping children off at school.
Tucker also said Nissan needed a new ad campaign because the automaker is in the middle of launching eight new cars and trucks. Nissan launched redesigned or refreshed versions of the Altima, Maxima and Sentra last year and will launch new or redesigned versions of the Titan, Armada, GT-R and GT-R Nismo this year. By the end of the year Nissan says more than 85% of the brand’s lineup will be all-new or refreshed.
“We have an opportunity to tell a very compelling story. But our marketing ... it’s been inconsistent,” Tucker said.