• by Karl Greenberg , May 27, 2011

Nissan has a new campaign for the Leaf electric car called "Gas Powered Everything" centering on a spot that contemplates a steam-punk (except gasoline instead of steam) world where innovation has begun and ended with the internal combustion engine.

The creative forwards the idea that there is nothing inevitable or perpetual about the internal combustion. The effort, via AOR Chiat, makes that point by imagining a world where just about everything requires a gasoline-powered engine to operate.

The ad begins with a couple waking up in the morning to their alarm clock, which is powered by a gasoline engine with a tiny Mack truck-style stack spewing a little plume of smoke over their bed. They head into the kitchen where the man pulls a lawn-mower style lanyard to start the coffeemaker while his wife blow dries her hair with a gasoline-powered hair drier.

Cut to the street where a woman prepares to jog by starting the tiny smoke-spewing gasoline engine on her arm that powers her MP3 player. On the street, the guy passes the jogger, who has to waft the smoke away from her face with her hand as she jogs. The guy, meanwhile, takes out his cell phone, which is also powered by a little gasoline engine.

Things get more absurd. At the office, the guy twists the ignition key on his desktop computer, and depresses the gas pedal on the floor to get the computer running. Meanwhile, a technician checks the oil level on the copy machine and a guy goes to a little gasoline pump next to the water cooler to fill up the gas tank on his laptop computer.

The money scene is at the dentist's office, where our guy waits his turn. Once in the chair he opens wide and the dentist hefts a drill that looks like it's powered by a chainsaw motor. Finally, at the end, we see the guy filling his car. Voiceover: "What if everything ran on gas? Then again, what if it didn't?" He looks across the street at another guy removing the electric charging cord from his Nissan Leaf. The ads drive traffic to GasPoweredEverything.com.

The effort includes four 15-second teasers and a 60-second ad. Says VP marketing Jon Brancheau: "This campaign was conceived to challenge the notion that cars can only run on gas. By using humor and asking the simple question, 'what if everything ran on gas,' we're able to rationally make the case that electric cars' time has arrived."