• by Karl Greenberg , February 2, 2011

Nissan launched its Juke compact crossover last fall with a gimlet eye on the 20- and 30-something market. The company has definitely hooked into the jaded aspect of younger Web-savvy consumers who might roll their eyes and sigh heavily at ads promoting cars as adrenalin machines for Jason Statham-type tough guys. Indeed, ads for Juke feature a regular Joe named Kowalczyk whose mission is to get to the donut store and back in one piece before a staff meeting. He does so with action-hero moves, leaping over cubicles and employing stunt-driving techniques to get to the donut shop post-haste.

Now Nissan is extending the riff with a new interactive comic book-style movie on its YouTube channel that lets people decide where the film's narrative leads. The effort, "Choose Your Adventure," has Kowalczyk again heading to the donut shop, except the viewer can choose where he goes and what choices he makes at different points in the story.

The cartoon calls out Juke product attributes and features while word balloons say "Kowalczyk is on a mission to get donuts ... and he needs your help." The film shows the navigation system in the car, as well as the car's dashboard array and console and asks the viewer to choose between the optional "sport" and "eco" driving modes. Once he gets to the donut shop, the character then needs help choosing whether to break the window to get into the store, forget the donuts and go out with the girl who's hanging out there, or go in through the door.

Phil O'Connor, senior manager of marketing communications at Nissan, says the Juke campaign actually started with iAds, Apple's mobile ad platform for products like iPhone. "We were one of the initial users of iAds with Leaf [Nissan's new electric car]. It allows us to gear our messages to target 25- to-30-year-old males." He says the You Tube program has a similar interactivity that is critical when it comes to reaching that demographic. "It allows you to go in and use our iAd assets to create 'Build Your Own Adventure. So with iAd you can learn about the car and do some things a 25-year-old guy might find interesting."

Nissan is promoting the interactive movie with a large banner ad across the top of YouTube's home page and on Facebook. O'Connor says the movie, which launched three days ago, has gotten 245,955 views. "We feel it is doing a good job not only at communicating the product, but at being an enjoyable experience." He says traditional advertising for Juke is focused primarily around sports.

"Since the product was a concept even a couple of years ago, it was designed to be a vehicle that appealed to a young male audience -- one that is educated, early professional and driven. Consistently, from that point forward, everything we have done has been geared toward that customer."

In January Nissan sold 3,095 of the vehicles. In December, the best month ever for Nissan in the U.S., the company sold 3,163 Jukes.