Background
The old Nissan Micra didn’t exactly set pulses racing. Even motoring correspondents made fun of it with quotes like: “no one ever aspired to a Micra, you just ended up with one if life didn’t go your way”.
Now we had to launch the New Nissan Micra. The car had a great new design. BUT – It was still called Micra. How do you change a perception built up over 30 years, overnight?
Strategy
The new Micra was great, but the Micra name wasn’t. Our task was clear. We had to gain respect for the Micra name, fast. Otherwise we felt people were not even going to look at the New Micra. The task was to change perceptions of the Micra name first, then sell the car across all stages of the consumer journey. Capture hearts first, and then minds. In other words, use a combination of ART and Science – an approach we are proud of in Huskies.
Creative
Once we saw the new car in the flesh – we knew this car was different. The old Micra was no more. The new Micra has a more aggressive, muscular stance. This car was never going be made fun of ever again. We set out to make that clear to everyone. We told a story about the difference between the old Micra and the New Micra. We launched the line “NO MORE NICE CAR”. We kept this creative and tone of voice through all aspects of the consumer journey.
Media
We used online film, Cinema and Outdoor to capture the hearts of our audience and then used a combination of display and paid social across stages of consumer journey, to capture their minds.
Results
The same new model was launched across Europe, similar price positioning with comparable investment and competitive environment, yet in Ireland Micra doubled its share of the small car segment to 10% whereas other markets maintained a 2-4% share after launch. It also gained a huge amount of positive media coverage and the film gained almost 1.2 million views across the campaign.