The auto industry is expected to spend about $1.2 billion this year on social media advertising, and that number is projected to grow to $4.6 billion by 2015. Nissan is taking the trend to a new level, however, with a promotion they’re launching for the new Juke.
Instead of having a celebrity or another social media icon take the word about the new car to the social media world, Nissan is having two relatively unknown men with zero celebrity status drive the Juke around for a week, Tweeting, Facebooking and YouTubing about it. The two unknowns are Jason Sadler and Evan White from IWearYourShirt.com.
Says Josh Clifton, Nissan North America Manager, Nissan Product Communications & Social Media: At Nissan, we have seen how social media is a great channel to interact directly with media, key influencers and customers through our own brand Facebook page and Twitter stream. The Juke is targeted for the active millennial male target – a young audience engaged in online social spaces, making it perfect to talk about in those channels.”
To build buzz ahead of the vehicle launch, Nisaan hosted three regional blogger events in top cities for young professionals: Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. “We invited 5-10 bloggers in each city on a ride experience checking out locations that corresponded with the features of the vehicle, such as iconic music stores, motorcycle shops (for the center console) and parking garages to fit in small spaces. We encouraged participants to tweet with hashtags (#jukerideLA #jukerideCHI #jukerideMIA), check-in on 4SQ or Facebook Places and post images on Facebook and their sites,” Clifton added.
Nissan continued the conversations on product-specific channels on Facebook and Twitter, and are celebrating the launch of the vehicle this week with IWearYourShirt.com, “two fun guys who represent the target market and fun, stylish personality of the vehicle,” said Clifton.
IWearYourShirt.com provides a unique way for companies to advertise to the online community. It starts by companies purchasing a day on the IWearYourShirt.com calendar. Sadler tells us he started the business 9/08. 1/1/09 was the first day that he got paid to wear a t-shirt for a living and a company paid $1. Each day went up $1 until the end of the year at $365. Jason sold out 2009 in 8 months, hired a second shirt wearer for 2010 and has since sold out 2010 this past July. In 2011 the starting price for January 1 is $5 and will increase $5 in price each day thereafter. On the day of purchase in 2011, five individuals will promote the company of the day by wearing the same t-shirt with the company logo as well engaging with the community and creating online content.
White and Sadler have the Juke cars from 10/4 and 10/6, respectively, until 10/13. Nissan shirts will be worn 10/8 — this was the original day Nissan purchased over a year ago.
