NISSAN CONTROLLER - A CAR THAT DRIVES FOOTBALL

TitleNISSAN CONTROLLER - A CAR THAT DRIVES FOOTBALL
BrandNISSAN NORDIC EUROPE
Product/ServiceNISSAN QASHQAI
Category G02. Branded Tech Offline
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, gaming and driving together. Literally. We created Nissan Controller - 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 with help of our influencers.

Creative Execution

The Controller is a device we built that can transform any Nissan QASHQAI into a PlayStation controller for Pro Evolution Soccer. It listens and translates over 2 million car signals to the PlayStation through a custom-build micro controller making it possible to interact with the PlayStation by using the cars driving interface. The Controller was developed openly with opinion influencers that would resonate with our target group. The whole development processs was turned into entertaining content for people to enjoy in their native social channels. After the development phase we organized live events during the biggest football matches in Europe including Champions League final and Super Cup final. We gave fans a chance to jump behind the wheel of a Nissan QASHQAI and compete against each other in Controller tournaments before the actual games.

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.

Before the campaign we made a study that proved that most Swedish football fans in driving age also loved console games. We decided to create a campaign that would truly speak 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.