Team GB primary sponsor Nissan UK’s #DoItForUs sees the car company have some fun with its Olympic/Paralympic team activation by spoofing British sports stars with over-the-top, absurd sponsorship requests.
Before they left for Brazil, the prank saw Nissan bring a team of GB stars together and filmed them on hidden cameras as they attempted to convince the athletes to promote the Nissan brand with some daft, ridiculous sponsor requests during the Games.
Filmed on camera, a fake Nissan brand manager asks the athletes to do a set of comically invasive sponsor acts to promote the Nissan Leaf and the brand itself: such as steering themselves to their starting positions on the track, shouting ‘Leaf me alone!’, making the sound of a Nissan starting up during press interviews and using the thumbs and forefingers on each hand to create an ‘N’ logo when celebrating victories.
The pranked stars in #DoItForUs include Paralympians Richard Whitehead and Stef Reid, heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, gymnast Max Whitlock, Kat Copeland and cyclist Becky James.
The campaign launched with a comical compilation 90-second TV spot aired (on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky) as the Olympics kicked off on 5 August.
The ad is a cut down from a 3 minutes 20-second online film.
Nissan is also making use of Twitter’s new ‘First View’ video ad slot – with the central film appearing on user feeds for 24 hours after launch.
The TV work is supported by Facebook, Twitter,
Hey @TeamGB & @ParalympicsGB! Do it for the glory, your nation, but crucially – do it for Nissan#Rio2016 #DoItForUshttps://t.co/k0g6paNFnr
— NissanUK (@NissanUK) August 4, 2016
and YouTube where two further spots serve as instructional videos for the athletes.
All three social platforms will also be used to distribute engaging Olympic related activity throughout the games as the UK arm of the car brand runs social media pieces in real-time to leverage athlete ambassadors as they compete through the games on its own channels,
Looking forward to watching you 'N'-ail it today @Maxwhitlock1. Best of luck in the final. #Rio2016 #DoItForUs pic.twitter.com/WFjsQr6aYy
— NissanUK (@NissanUK) August 8, 2016
and on platforms of some of the sports stars themselves.
Pranked! Big time @NissanUK I don't know how she kept a straight face! #DoItForUs #Rio2016 https://t.co/7PDI7V7ufF
— Max Whitlock (@maxwhitlock1) August 5, 2016
The TV spot was created by Hannah Ford and Jim de Zoete and it was directed by Olly Parsons at Red Bee.
Fuse Sport + Entertainment runs Nissan’s Team GB sponsorship activation, while media was handled by Manning Gottlieb OMD.
Comment
After all the serious, emotional and inspirational work around Rio 2016, it comes as something of a little light relief to see Nissan UK inject some slapstick humour into its Team GB sponsorship activation.
This light-hearted approach is a tonal twist on Nissan’s pre-Games Team GB partnership activation in May which used Facebook Live to run a nationwide live streamed training event which enables members of the public and fans to train in parallel with Team GB and Paralympics GB stars such as Richard Whitehead, Max Whitlock and Kat Copeland (see case study).
While back in late 2015, the UK arm of the auto outfit also ran a series of Team GB stories to activate its rights – including
Richard Chiassaro ‘s ‘From school rebel to champion’,
and Becky James’‘Four months injured. One year ‘til Rio’.
Other legendary Olympic athlete ambassadors (such as Sir Chris Hoy
and Baroness Tanny Grey-Thompson)
are also part of the Nissan UK activation programme around Rio 2016.
The brand’s other Olympics work in other markets around the world is spearheaded by its Brazilian, host-market ‘Bolt vs Flame’ campaign (see case study) and the social media led launch of its Diehard Fan Nation initiative (a mobile app that allows consumers to virtually paint their faces with 2000 different designs to show support for their country before posting.)
A trick it has already used to activate its US sports sponsorships.
In addition to these brand awareness and positioning activation strands, Nissan is also aiming to sell more cars around the Olympics too.
Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said that he saw the brand’s Olympic sponsorship as an opportunity and says it was the ‘right decision” to sponsor Team GB in order to raise much higher awareness of the brand there’ and ’would like to see its market share there grow from 3% to 5% as a result of its Rio 2016 marketing efforts’.
Links
Nissan UK YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheNissanGB
Nissan UK Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/NissanUK/
Nissan UK Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/NissanUK
Nissan UK Web:
Team GB (British Olympic Association):
https://www.teamgb.com/
Team GB Twitter:
https://twitter.com/teamgb
@TeamGB
Team GB Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TeamGB
Team GB Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/teamgb/
Rio 2016:
http://www.rio2016.com/
