2019 Winners & Shortlists

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

Nissan brought to life their Intelligent Mobility Technology through there sponsorship of the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) Champions League. Nissan Intelligent Mobility (NIM) is a crucial pillar of the brand; however, the new and innovative technology is technical and complicated for the average consumer to understand. To bring the technology to life in an easily digestible format, Nissan created short-form videos by selecting exciting moments during UCL games that established parallels with Nissan's technology. Videos were produced and edited in real-time and broadcast across social platforms as up-to-the-minute in-game replays.

Background.

Nissan is the leader in automotive technology. Through their Intelligent Mobility technology, they’ve successfully become the leaders in electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, and vehicles with connected technology. However, most people are unaware of Nissan's leadership position in intelligent vehicle technology, and to make matters worse, getting people to understand these complicated and confusing innovations is a difficult communications task. Nissan’s sponsorship of the UEFA Champions league presented the perfect opportunity to bring Nissan Intelligent Mobility to life. With the attention of 53% of the global population, 4.3bn television viewers, and over 100 million social media followers, the UEFA Champions League was the perfect platform to get people aware of, and familiar with, all the innovations packed inside Nissan vehicles.

Describe the creative idea.

Exciting UCL moments are some of the most watched, talked about, and shared moments online. Moreover, soccer fans are some of the most passionate, interested, and engaged fans in the world. These fans don’t just passively watch games; they get involved in the action. They cheer, complain, debate, and share content primarily around pivotal moments of high-action and high-excitement. Often, these moments happen fast; and you need a second look to understand or appreciate the level of skill and talent you just saw. These were the precise occasions for Nissan to leverage. By creating real-time highlights, Nissan could provide fans with the content they actively look for while increasing their knowledge of NIM technology in a way that seamlessly fit with UCL moments of excitement.

Describe the strategy

We used the world’s most widely watched and understood sport, to drive awareness and familiarity of Nissan Intelligent Mobility. In 1980 George P. Lakoff published “Metaphors We Life By” a groundbreaking book which examined the way we gain understanding through an extensive system of metaphorical jumps between concepts. Our understanding is influenced and determined by our experiences in the physical world. This is why we say that something is “over our heads” to express the idea that we do not understand. To bring Nissan Intelligent Mobility to life in an easily understandable way, we used real-world experiences, action-packed moments of UCL games, that captured the attention of millions of fans, as metaphors to demonstrate Nissan’s exciting and innovative technology.

Describe the execution

To bring the idea to life, we brought Nissan brand experts, and motion designers together during live UCL games to highlight moments that perfectly explained Nissan’s intelligent mobility technology. Goal-line saves became the perfect moment to demonstrate intelligent lane intervention, and no-look passes were the ideal metaphor to explain intelligent around view monitor. We used these, and dozens of other big game moments to bring Nissan intelligent mobility to life in an easily understandable way. To communicate our message at a time of peak relevance and topical interest we edited each highlight in real-time and broadcasted them across Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram stories – the primary channels sports fans turn to for up-to-the-minute short-form highlights’. We created over twenty videos that brought awareness and familiarity to some of Nissan’s most innovative but complex technologies.

Describe the outcome

The primary role of Nissan’s sports sponsorship is to build brand differentiation and presence in a way that connects with new and existing audiences. Nissan products play a secondary role and act as the support for inspiring and activating creative ideas. As such, our primary objective was to increase awareness and familiarity of Nissan intelligent mobility technology, as measured by: Generated Earned Media 250,000+ impressions mentions (+2,400% increase versus UCL social content) 47% increase in social (+370% increase versus average UCL social content) Our secondary objective was to increase purchase consideration and purchase intent, as measured by: +7% increase in test drives (+40% increase versus average UCL content)