NISSAN CONTROLLER - A CAR THAT DRIVES FOOTBALL

TitleNISSAN CONTROLLER - A CAR THAT DRIVES FOOTBALL
BrandNISSAN NORDIC EUROPE
Product/ServiceNISSAN QASHQAI
Category A08. Sports Entertainment
Entrant TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Idea Creation TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Placement OMD FINLAND Helsinki, FINLAND
PR TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Production TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Production 2 ACNE PRODUCTION Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Miika Lumme TBWA\Helsinki Client Service Director
Mikko Pietilä TBWA\Helsinki Creative Director
Steve Brown TBWA\Helsinki Content Director
Jeroen Van Hove TBWA\Helsinki Chief Data Officer
Aarne Töllinen OMD Finland Media Strategist
Annamari Sandlund TBWA\Helsinki Project Director
Antti Nykänen TBWA\Helsinki Project Manager
Erno Reinikainen TBWA\Helsinki Senior Art Director
Tuomas Perälä TBWA\Helsinki Copywriter
Elina Brunfeldt TBWA\Helsinki Graphic Designer
Jukka Aaltonen TBWA\Helsinki Graphic Designer
Mika Virta TBWA\Helsinki Art Director
Tuukka Laitinen TBWA\Helsinki Motion Graphics
Esko Räsänen TBWA\Helsinki Developer
Miika Pärni TBWA\Helsinki Developer
Umberto Onza TBWA\Helsinki Product Design
Mia Hindsberg TBWA\Helsinki Digital Producer
Joel Brink TBWA\Helsinki Project coordinator
Markus Malmberg TBWA\Helsinki Community Manager
Nicolas Angione TBWA Community Manager
Ville Verkkapuro TBWA\Helsinki Community Manager

The Campaign

As part of the collaboration between Nissan and UEFA Champions League, we created a campaign that links football and driving together. We gave our audiences a change to experience Nissan brand through gaming. Nissan Controller is a technology that transforms any Nissan QASHQAI into a giant PlayStation Controller for the Pro Evolution Soccer Game. The actual campaign was built around an open development process, of which we produced branded content to both paid and earned channels.

Creative Execution

The actual campaign was built around an open development process, of which we produced branded content to both paid and earned channels during two months. We wanted to get our target group interested in Nissan Controller already in the early phase of its development, so we engaged influencers in the fields of football, motoring, technology and gaming to get involved in the development of the Controller. These were people we knew our target audience admired. These superstars in the car, technology, sports and gaming world voluntarily created content about Nissan Controller to their own channels throughout the development work. As a result, the campaign reached millions of people worldwide. After the product development, we gave consumers a change to play with the Controller during activations in biggest football matches in Europe including Champions League final in Milan and Super Cup final in Trondheim.

The campaign's target market was Sweden but it evolved into a worldwide phenomenon that received press coverage in 35 countries? Thanks to Controller, Nissan QASHQAI's sales rose by 16% compared with last year, which in euros is 7 050 684. Test drives of Nissan QASHQAI saw a 226 % increase, of which 33% was converted into sales. This in euros equates to growth of €3 199 708. In its target market in Sweden, the campaign reached 23,6 million people in two months. As a result, Nissan's brand's overall opinion increased by 5% in Sweden. The branded video contents got more than 5,3 million views and the campaign contents as a whole hit more than 434,1 million impressions worldwide. The earned media value for the campaign was 3 853 681 euros.

Nissan Controller turned the experience of driving into entertainment. As gaming is the best form of modern entertainment and Nissan is the main sponsor of UEFA Champions League, we created cars that can drive football. The Controller was developed openly with opinion influencers that would resonate with our target group. The whole development process was turned into entertaining content for people to enjoy in their native social channels. We also organized entertaining live activations during the biggest football matches in Europe where the football fans could experience the brand through gaming and enjoy football in a totally new way.

Before the campaign we researched data on our target group. We found that most Swedish football fans in driving age also loved console games. We decided to create a campaign that truly speaks to them. We analyzed our target group even further and realized that these consumers could be divided into even smaller, more specific subgroups based on their interests. We defined our target group into five different factions; the gamers, the football fanatics, the technology enthusiasts, the car enthusiasts and the ones interested in sports in general. With help of data, we searched for opinion influencers that would really resonate with these subgroups. We invited these influencers to take part in the development of Nissan Controller and created entertaining content out of this for our audiences to enjoy. All of our content elements were optimized during the campaign with help of data and dashboards to achieve the best results.