• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 6, 2009

Nissan has launched a YouTube campaign called Slam Dunk to promote its 370Z sports car. The promotion to find the best dunks began by targeting basketball fans who had already videoed and uploaded clips to the site -- which enabled the car manufacturer to keep its budget lean, according to Ryan Stonehouse, Google account executive for automotive.

The promotion launched in late March with a home page ad and a dedicated YouTube page. Toronto Raptor Chris Bosh, a four-time NBA All-Star and retired NBA player Jalen Rose, best known as one of the University of Michigan's fabled Fab Five and now an ESPN commentator, are the spokesmen for the campaign.

The 20 best videos according to Nissan and YouTube viewers will advance to the finals. Participants can upload clips through April 26. Nissan will crown the winning dunker "The Best Dunker on YouTube." The winner -- to be announced June 10 -- will receive a chance to roll with the dunk crew, Team Flight Brothers, which rose to fame through their exposure on YouTube.

As some automotive brands hunker down, trim resources and retreat from sending messages to consumers, "Nissan is busy building brand equity and value for consumers" through an existing YouTube community, Stonehouse said. "A search on YouTube for automotive-related content returns hundreds of thousands of results."

Google continues to see growth in searches for automotive content on YouTube. A study concluded early last year showed that 41% of people researched other models at the online video site before making a purchase. The study, conducted between March 2007 and March 2008, found a 237% increase in consumers shopping for information about branded products in videos, which seem to provide the information required to make a purchase. The Mountain View, Calif. search engine plans to release the latest findings later this month.

Preliminary findings suggest that the trend to view online branded videos on YouTube when researching a car purchase continues. Bonita Stewart, Google industry director of automotive, said YouTube car search queries rose 19% between September and December 2008 compared with the year-earlier period, though vehicle sales dropped during the quarter.