Man Lives in Nissan in $50 Million Campaign
Nissan is revving up a multi-tiered, multi-million dollar promotion that ties blogs, Webisodes, a MySpace page and more to the experience of a photographer living out of a 2007 Nissan Sentra for seven straight days.
The automaker will fork out up to $50 million for the campaign, dubbed 7 Days in a Sentra, according to The New York Times. Geared to reach consumers in their twenties and thirties, the promotion mirrors pop culture trends by following San Franciscan Marc Horowitz, a photographer’s assistant, as he lives, eats and sleeps in the car to promote its features.
The total 168 hours of footage was shot in and around the environs of Los Angeles over the summer. Consumers can view outtakes of the experience on Horowitz’s MySpace page. On Nissan’s Web site, a two-minute feature captures the seven-day experience in which Horowitz had to sleep in a different location each night in the car, eat at least four meals in the vicinity of the car, host a “social function” in the car, and abide to other rules.
“With this approach, we’re moving away from interrupting our consumers and toward creating opportunities to interact with them,” said Jan Thompson, Nissan’s VP-marketing in a statement. “I think we also transition from storytelling to conversation.”
To support the initiative, street teams with interactive AdVans in seven key markets will drive traffic to the NissanUSA.com/7days Web site. In addition, seven 30-second TV spots will air and a short documentary film capturing the experience will be part of TiVo’s Showcase lineup (which allows marketers to deliver video directly to the DVRs of TiVo subscribers across the country).
A blog will include Horowitz’s journal entries from the week, photos, and outtakes from his adventure, which can be passed on virally. Along with the 2007 Nissan Altima and Versa, the Sentra is being launched under Nissan’s Next Generation Shift_2.0 campaign.
Creative is handled by Nissan’s agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, based in Playa del Rey, CA. Other agencies involved in the campaign include New York City-based OMD, Tequila, The Vidal Partnership, Edelman and The Designory.
