TALK\
Nissan creates subversive Urban Sports Universe to launch Qashqai Car
16\12\2006
Nissan has announced that it’s undertaking a unique approach to pre-launch its latest car, a compact crossover named QASHQAI — by creating a whole universe around a fictitious urban sport named QASHQAI Car Games.
The QASHQAI Car Games (QCG) campaign represents a collaborative pan-European effort by Nissan’s communication agencies including TBWA\G1-Europe, TBWA\LONDON, OMD and DUKE bringing QCG to life across the online world and the game’s official website www.QASHQAIcargames.com.
The concept created by TBWA\LONDON and TBWA\G1-Europe will see the most robust part of the integrated campaign roll out with the launch of brand new online films showing jaw-dropping stunts performed by ‘professional’ QASHQAI drivers. The campaign uses a unique approach to engage a new target audience of 25-35 year old urban males using satirical, but inspiring content delivered through a variety of online channels. TBWA\ has developed the concept with every aspect of the extreme sport brought to life including the history, rules, fan sites, teams and driver profiles.
An official website, created by DUKE, allows visitors to experience the games while a sophisticated seeding strategy developed by OMD and TBWA brings it to life through multiple storylines across a variety of online channels. DUKE also created complementary content to bring the idea to life in addition to developing a rich media banner campaign due to launch at the end of November to drive further traffic to the www.QASHQAIcargames.com site.
According to the elaborate ‘history’ of the sport, it began in Berlin in 2001 by BMX enthusiast ‘Magmus Stiller’. Wanting to take the sport to the next level, ace driver ‘Aki Yakamoto’ teamed up with Nissan to develop a new concept car, the QASHQAI, and QASHQAI Car Games were born, leading to the sports expansion into Europe, the USA, Tokyo, Brazil and Russia.
Those who encounter the games are left to decide if QASHQAI Car Games are a reality or mathematically impossible with seeded sites — from blogs to false news reports - representing both theories. Real or not, the aim is to provide engaging entertainment to the target audience.
Bastien Schupp, General Manager Marketing Communications for Nissan Europe SAS said, ” We were looking for a way to get a younger, trendy audience to engage with the name QASHQAI. Although difficult to control and predict, the online world and its many formats looked like the right platform to reach our target. At the same time, this campaign allows us to learn more about this relatively new environment where Internet, advertising and entertainment are increasingly merging, while having loads of fun!”
Steve Henry, executive creative director of TBWA\LONDON said “This is the most exciting part of marketing these days — building websites, seeding virals, starting an online debate. A lot of online marketing isn’t very good, but this campaign is original, humorous and provocative”.
- Author:
- Avril Canavan
- Tags:
- nissan
- online
- qashqai
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