Take the Wheel - Whybin\TBWA\Tequila

Background

2009 is the 40th anniversaty of the Nissan Z range and the new 370Z was the pinnacle of this rich heritage. However, sales of cars were down 22% in Australia making this a tough time to sell any sort of vehicle.

Idea

Because the car attracts young, early-adopters, the idea was to give them the feeling of being behind the wheel by sending them the wheel in the mail. Using augmented reality technology, recipients could turn the wheel in front of their webcams and thus get to see every curve and detail of the car. By clicking on the car they could even turn its lights on.

Banners also used webcam tracking so that as viewers looked at the fascia of the 370Z, when they moved their heads in front oif their PCs, so their perspective of the dashboard changed on-screen.

These took the audience to the website, 370 Reasons to Z.

Results

Linking direct mail and digital helped achieve 7,497 responses in the first week to the 3,500 packs mailed out with each person spending an average of 4.35 minutes on the site.

The target number of enquiries was doubled and cars are currently being ordered at the rate of 29 per week, which is the equivalent of two months’ of sales for the 370Z’s predecessor the 350Z.

In May and June, sales of the car were worth $15.7m

Our Thoughts

There are a couple of pieces in this issue that highlight the benefits of combining old school direct and digital. Although to call anything about this job old school seems unfair. It’s a very involving campaign that has multiple elements, many of them featuring pretty innovative technology. It’s cool that the steering wheel has an AR code but I wonder whether there couldn’t be more of an idea built in here than just looking at the car? Turning the lights on is cool though and the camera-operated car view is also nice. It’s also great to see such robust results. Often pieces will tell you how many clicks they got, how long people stayed on the site but no mention of actual sales. Not here. These are great.