1. Launch the new X'Trail Compact 4X4 car2. Conquest new clients for the brand with a focus towards the new core Brand Target ("Creators")3. Fuel the new Nissan Brand Identity with a first product proof The advertising plan in France was built around a selective and qualitative poster campaign in 30 key cities. The selection of cities was based on the core audience profile analysis and 4X4 market potential. The poster campaign was composed of dual and highly qualitative isolated sites. On top of the Urban and Mountain visuals, a specific creative (traffic officers forced to climb to place a ticket on a X'Trail) were placed in isolated positions to create empathy with the audience.It was completed by successive ads (Urban and Mountain visuals) in a selection of publications addressing both work-related and personal needs.In synergy with the advertising campaign, a partnership was settled with the "Nuit de la Glisse" Tour across France : the showing of a 2 hour movie with sliding sports images. This initiative allowed product placement in the “Nuit de la Glisse” movie, the showing of the X'Trail commercial before the movie (budgetwise, X'Trail TV spots were introduced only in 2002) and a variety of product presences (posters, radio spots and print ads announcing the tour, tickets…). The event also generated local Dealer activity (VIP invitation for prospects and clients, X'Trail car in front of cinemas). Overall, the "Nuit de la Glisse" delivered more than 1 M€ worth of media value (10 times the net spend) and efficient sales contacts for dealers. The detailed analysis of the target audience in the context of the Nissan X'Trail message (a compact 4X4 designed for extreme life in and out of town) allowed to identify key insights which drove the overall communication strategy : a core audience with a work hard / play hard attitude, highly busy and eager to maximize their work and leisure time. Strategic communication principles were derived from this analysis : focus regionalism (major cities only vs a "national" campaign), combine advertising and PR initiatives to build-up a media platform around extreme sports ('Nuit de la Glisse' , e.g sliding sports, Tour event), deliver jointly Urban and Mountain visuals on qualitative poster sites (contacts while driving) and in targeted publications (week-end reading for a highly busy audience). The OMD team in charge of the project was genuinely European and identified a core audience for the X'Trail campaign in capital cities across Europe, beyond national boundaries. On the basis of consumer insights, OMD and TBWA developed together the overall campaign proposal for Nissan. Then local OMD & TBWA teams delivered the best local implementations A great example of pan European and pan discipline teamwork.More importantly, the campaign achieved great results for a limited level of investment compared to classical car launches. In France, the campaign delivered 30% extra impact vs car campaign average (Ipsos – Imported cars standard). The “Nuit de la Glisse” initiative delivered more than 1 M€ of media value (X10 vs net spend). 2000 X'Trail cars were sold in the first month of the launch in Sept. 2001 and Nissan gained the 2nd position on the 4X4 segment in Q4 2001 (+84% vs Q4 2000).

The detailed analysis of the target audience in the context of the Nissan X'Trail message (a compact 4X4 designed for extreme life in and out of town) allowed to identify key insights which drove the overall communication strategy : a core audience with a work hard / play hard attitude, highly busy and eager to maximize their work and leisure time. Strategic communication principles were derived from this analysis : focus regionalism (major cities only vs a "national" campaign), combine advertising and PR initiatives to build-up a media platform around extreme sports ('Nuit de la Glisse' , e.g sliding sports, Tour event), deliver jointly Urban and Mountain visuals on qualitative poster sites (contacts while driving) and in targeted publications (week-end reading for a highly busy audience).