Nissan Taps Adam Carolla For Versa Road Trip Effort

• Comment
• Recommend
• Tweet
• 

Carolla's ACE Broadcasting company is involved in the effort, a series of videos to show why he decides to change his name to "Adam Versa," his own road trip around his hometown of North Hollywood and a "Hypothetical Road Trip Game" with Larry Miller.

The promotional relationship backs a social-media campaign at MyVersaRoadTrip.com, a Facebook Connect website. Consumers are invited to go to the site and create a road trip by selecting routes, picking soundtracks and inviting three Facebook friends to accompany them. Entrants then submit their trip, telling Nissan why their online journey should be made into a real one and then share it with their own social networks.

"While highly social, target Versa buyers in their mid-to-late twenties often are juggling new time commitments and financial priorities," said Jon Brancheau, vice president, marketing, Nissan North America, Inc. "This makes staying connected with friends easier online, so the 'My Versa Road Trip' campaign gives them opportunity to engage online for potential chance to reconnect in person offline."

As for Carolla, he will also rename the Sept. 21 episode of "The Adam Carolla Show" "The Adam Versa Show." His guest on the show will be Erich Marx, Nissan's digital and social marketing director. The company says that Marx use his time on the show to talk about Nissan's approach to social media, promote the "My Versa Road Trip" program, and of course the car, and then take part in a round of Carolla's Hypothetical Road Trip game.

Nissan will pick people who uploaded their fantasy road trips at the MyVersaRoadTrip.com site to receive a 2012 Versa Sedan and take the four-day road trip they they submitted. Along the journey, the winners will submit updates, tweets, images and other content from the road so users can follow their trip online.

Versas will be outfitted with stop-motion cameras inside and out. When the trips conclude, the footage will be used to create mini road-trip movies to be shared in an online film festival in January 2012. The community will judge the films, giving them a chance to win prizes as well.--Karl Greenberg