Camelpower
Nissan
Issue 43 | June 2017
Agency
TBWA\RAAD
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Walid Kanaan Executive Creative Director Fouad AbdelMalak Creative Director Manuel Borde Copywriters Guilherme Grossi, Alex Pineda Art Directors Oswaldo Sa, Gabriel Gama Digital Team Clayton Needham, Felipe Sona Head of Art Claudio Campisto
Production Team
Head of Production Rouba Asmar Producer Nadya Tereshina
Other Credits
Account Team Saad Gharzeddine, Mathieu Khaled
Date
March 2017
Background
Desert off-road driving in the Middle East was practically a sport. However, car brands had been using horsepower for years as the standard measure of their vehicles' desert capabilities even though on those mighty dunes, having high horsepower was not enough. The GTR, for example, was a car high on horsepower but low on capabilities in the sand.
Idea
Nissan United Middle East partnered with National Geographic to devise and bring to the world a new unit of measurement for the desert performance of cars. Camelpower. A concept that had been in development for more than a year and a half. And just as horsepower had been based on the horse, this new unit was based on a true desert animal and icon of the middle east region, the camel.
Results
The concept was developed by Nissan Engineers and was fully supported by the Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology (ESMA) who planned to take the new unit of measurement to a global ISO accreditation summit and get all car brands to apply it to their SUV desert models.
Our Thoughts
We've put this idea firmly in the 'Innovations' section because it is a completely new and scientifically respectable way of measuring how a 4x4 performs in desert conditions. Quite apart from the fact that the idea is endearingly bonkers, it underscores Nissan's off-road talents. And then what it also does brilliantly is let the UAE know important the region is to them and, indeed, how important they are to the region.