automotive

Nissan Vids: Sentra Can Teach You The Moves

Bartender-B

If it's easy to create videos for YouTube, it's hard to accomplish the viral part -- especially when there's a major brand attached. Nissan has a shot at beating the odds with a humorous set of metaphoric videos that somehow managed to apply dating advice for a clueless man to vehicle attributes of the new Nissan Sentra sedan. 

The six online videos, "Date Better with Sentra," follow the courtship and romance of a fictive couple named Jeff and Felicia. The series starts with Felicia smiling at Jeff, who for fairly obvious reasons is not used to being flirted with. In successive videos, he screws up one after another element of the dating, courtship, and relationship building, and each time a suave Hispanic character shows up as the bartender, waiter or lifeguard and sets the guy straight, using Sentra vehicle attributes and technology as examples of good etiquette. 

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The effort, which includes a video featuring Olympic gold medalist swimmer Ryan Lochte, touts the vehicle's Easy Fill Tire Alert system, LED accent headlights, RearView monitor and its Xtronic continuously variable transmission. In the latter example, the guy stumbles and bumbles his way over the girl, spilling his drink on her dress, and in an effort to start a conversation promises to pay the dry cleaning bill. The bartender steps in to explain that if he wants an example of smooth action, he should look to the Xtronic CVT. 

Erich Marx, director of social media and interactive marketing at the Franklin. Tenn.-based Nissan North America, tells Marketing Daily that the campaign, executed by AOR TBWA\Chiat\Day, came from an insight that the car can be seen as a representation of a person’s well-executed social trajectory. One of the Sentra TV spots has a guy with a Sentra getting more and more respect from executives at his company merely because he owns the car. “One of the key strategies behind the Sentra is that it makes a good first impression. So we thought, ‘What’s the equivalent in life?’”

Chad Jacoby, Nissan senior manager of social media marketing at the automaker, says the videos -- which launched four days ago -- have garnered views exceeding the company’s expectations. The effort includes a consumer engagement element wherein people can submit their most creative ending to the budding relationship story through a contest tab on the Sentra Facebook page. The most imaginative entry will win round-trip airfare for two to Los Angeles, two nights at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, where the videos were filmed, spa services for two, a $500 gift card, and a vehicle to drive around L.A.

The new Sentra, starting at just shy of $16,000, is the third of five vehicles that Nissan is launching over a 15-month period. The automaker, which had a 6% decline in sales last month to 70,928 units, has seen stronger sales of the new vehicles. The company had a 12.8% increase in sales of the redesigned Altima, which started selling this summer. Year-to-date sales of vehicle are up 16.3%. The Leaf all-electric car saw an 86% increase from the prior year. The new Pathfinder has just gone on sale in tight proximity to the Sentra launch.

The automaker says Hurricane Sandy put the lid on sales of Nissan vehicles since, per the company's VP of Nissan division Al Castignetti, the Eastern seaboard is the automaker’s strongest U.S. sales region, with over 225 dealers. The automaker is offering both employee discounts and employee financing to eligible residents in FEMA disaster areas.

 

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