THE CHALLENGE

Nissan was revealing a facelift of its most popular pickup truck in Thailand and Australia – the Nissan Navara - but the model was perceived as a functional purchase, rather than a bold, versatile, lifestyle vehicle with advanced technology. 

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 had brought unprecedented impacts to the entire car industry, while travel restrictions and social distancing regulations in many markets had brought further challenges by disrupting planning of our physical car unveil. 

We were challenged with highlighting the Navara’s Intelligent Mobility technology and sleek new design changes to customers and media, without putting anyone in harm’s way with a physical demonstration of its capabilities. 

THE STRATEGY

Conducting in-house research, we discovered that while the Navara’s pick-up competitors had market strategies that focused on the ‘muscle’ and power of their vehicles, this was now having a detrimental effect on drivers used to experiencing that power through real-world launches, now restricted due to COVID-19. 

Nissan saw the moment to appeal to this new digitally-bound audience seeking a more dynamic drive, by positioning of Navara as the James Bond of pick-ups. We would reframe the rustic appeal of the Navara as the smart and tough set of wheels that could not only get things done, but in an intelligent way. 

THE EXECUTION

Our idea - Mission Navara – to challenge our audience to different virtual ‘missions’ built around an interactive platform that would progressively unveil the new features of the Navara in a way that had never been tried before. 

Key automotive and lifestyle media in the Southeast Asia region were sent virtual mission invites that could only be unlocked with a secret code, discoverable via the Nissan Global website. Once entered, three sets of virtually interactive missions worked to gamify key features of Nissan Navara, unlocking additional socially-shareable video and motion graphic content that highlighted the Navara’s technological advancements and encouraged our players to visit the Nissan Navara web platform to book a test drive.

THE OUTCOME

• 254 articles on Nissan Navara vs 103 articles on Ford Ranger for the first week – Nissan Navara’s coverage exceeded that of Ford Ranger, which was simultaneously unveiled in Thailand 

• 92% avg key message penetration in key markets (Thailand and Australia)​ 

• 98% highly positive coverage in the first month since unveil​ 

• 254 articles on Nissan Navara vs 103 articles on Ford Ranger for the first week – Nissan Navara’s coverage exceeded that of Ford Ranger, which was simultaneously unveiled in Thailand