Wow! I can’t believe I just saw this ad! It’s like they made it specifically so I could make fun of it! Hey, thanks, guys!
So in this commercial for the Nissan Pathfinder, Xterra & Armada* SUVs, they show a regular Jeep Cherokee-looking Nissan vehicle driving on a desert highway, and as it goes off the road onto some dirt path, they then say something like: “Strip away the styling.” (And then some of the exterior of the car, like the doors and stuff, starts coming off while it’s driving through the woods {!}.) And then they say: “Strip off the rear-view screens, (blah, blah)” (And the car keeps coming apart while it’s driving over rough terrain {!!}.) So it just looks like it’s all falling apart from driving on a rough surface. Is that what they want to tell us: that it’s built like crap and will all fall apart when we go over bumps? Because that’s what it looks like!
Oh, but they’re just getting started here, because after a few more seconds, the body of the car comes off the frame, and it’s just the frame driving through the backwoods locale (!). So, are we to assume the driver was killed, or is now injured and stranded, while his frame and drive-train goes moseying off into the wilderness? Because that’s what we’re seeing happening here. (I hope they’ve got a good cell-phone signal so they can get rescued!)
Now, I will directly admit that if you watch this ad with all your attention, it makes sense within the context of the dialog and imagery. But it still looks like the car is coming apart! And if you watch this ad with the sound off (most people hit the “mute” button for ads), the only message you could possibly get is that Nissan SUVs will fall all apart if you try to drive them off-road or on any kind of rough terrain. What else are we supposed to think here? In fact, it’s so ridiculous, it’s hard to see how it’s helpful to the brand at all. Seriously: what were they thinking here?
Oh, but at least at the end of the spot, the three cars are all back together again, driving through the desert. It’s just that by this point, it starts to look like this is the rescue squad looking for survivors. Oh, well… (I hope there are some!)
And here it is, the so-called “Strip Away” Nissan SUVs ad! I can’t believe it’s here!:
And I’m not savaging this spot on purpose to be abusive here: this is really what this looks like! I can’t help it! But I think I know what happened here (although I can’t be sure). My theory goes something like this: Some guy with enough authority in the advertising department at Nissan probably went to their ad agency and said: “This is what I want for our next SUV ad: This is what I want it to say, and this is what I want it to do and to look like.” And so the ad agency said: “But…” And the Nissan guy said: “No buts! That’s what I want!” So they made the spot like this, and it’s not even their fault. And if that’s how it happened, then this is an object-lesson in why you should just go hire an ad agency whose work you like and think is clever, and then just trust them to do the right thing; because after all, they do this for a living, and you don’t (and that’s why!). So if you’re a 75-year-old CEO trying to sell stuff to 30-year-olds, you probably won’t even understand what would work to reach them; so hire someone who does, and just let them do their thing. And if you don’t like the outcome, then hire someone else the next time.
So, how could you fix this spot so it doesn’t say the Nissan SUVs will fall apart when you drive them off-road? Well, I wouldn’t necessarily do it this way to begin with, but to save this spot, I’d do the following: Show the cars driving like they do, but don’t show them coming all apart while they’re driving. Instead, when the dialog is read by the announcer about “Strip away the stuff, etc.”, simply cut away to a Nissan SUV parked in a showroom, or somewhere else, like a factory or a car repair shop, and show the stuff coming off there, and then cut back to the cars driving, and cut back to the showroom to show the car coming apart more, etc.: That way, it won’t look like it’s falling all apart when it’s driving on a rough surface. Because that’s what it does look like it’s doing now, especially with the sound off, and that’s just the wrong message to send, unless it’s intended as an ad attacking the quality of the brand, rather than an ad for it. See what I mean? (There was once a pickup truck ad that showed their trucks driving over rough terrain, and then they showed superimposed boxes that looked like they were showing an x-ray image of the interior-workings of the truck. Now that was brilliant! {Even if it was not particularly well-realized by the effects people, who made way too many boxes overlapping and bouncing around and mucked it all up.})
* BTW: Most of us remember the term “Armada” from the “Spanish Armada” that sank off the coast of England in 1588 and led to England ruling the seas for practically 400 years, so maybe it’s an ill-advised name for a rugged, dependable vehicle of any kind! Oh, but with our failing schools, maybe it won’t even matter, huh?
