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Continuing from yesterday’s post . . .
Nissan forked over $200+ million for that campaign, only to watch in horror as their sales actually went down. Yikes! How come?
Not many people were persuaded to invest $35,000 in a substantial product like a car based on style and flashy commercials alone. Now, while the ad was overwhelmingly captivating and entertaining — most people couldn’t recall the car manufacturer’s name.
Nissan learned the hard way, and these days they are focused on substance, and issues more relevant to their audience.
But how could this happen? why didn’t the agency know this could happen?
Laura Rees, president of the marketing strategy firm Rees & Rees, often comments on branding blunders and their unintended consequences thinks that “advertising that focuses on creative entertainment at the expense of relevance offers little more than endorsements of the icons around which the branding is supposed to take place.”
Consequently, Nissan’s sales plummeted.
In the first month of the campaign sales fell 2.7%.
In the next month they fell to 10.2%.
Then they fell 4%.
And then they fell two more percent.
Who was their biggest competitor? Yes that’s right, Toyota. And how were Toyota’s sales? “Just super, thanks for asking!”
While Nissan sales are falling faster than a rock in into a black hole, Toyota’s were skyrocketing.
What kind of ads were Toyota running? Well just the crappy, old boring one they’ve run many times before. You know the ones ‘buy a Toyota today and get $1000 rebate.’ They would never awards for those ads (the advertising industry would never allow it), and to say the least, effective ads won’t get you into the Hall of Fame and no, you won’t get to sit next to Oprah.
But it would (and did) get you the sales.
This is a cautionary tale for all small businesses and companies in America — there’s a HUGE! disconnect between what the agencies want and what their clients want.
Clients want more sales, that’s why they hired the alleged advertising experts. The ad agencies want accolades. They want the awards. They want to be on Oprah. And they want to do it all on your dime.
They could care less whether their creatives make clients money. From the agency’s perspective, that’s incidental. How can I say something like that? Simple. You hold them to the same test you give everyone else in life — when there’s a difference between what is said and what is done — look at their actions and ignore the words.
Therein lies the truth.
If Madison Avenue were so interested in creating more sales for their clients, then they would put measures in place to track the success of their “creative inspirations.”
Eventually, even though the Nissan executives loved all the attention, they finally had to face the red ink — sales were plummeting and there was no end in sight. So what did they do? They went back to the same old, ordinary, proven effective ads that made the money, but didn’t get on Oprah’s radar.
And within a month, sales had increased 10% over the previous year.
In the next month they increased 15% over the previous year.
At the end, while they were $200M poorer for the experience, they learned some key lessons in marketing.
So . . . what did you learn that you could apply to your business? Drop me a line and tell us all about it.
Like what you read? Then click here to buy me a coffee.
By Walter |
Topics: Client Top Secret, Marketing Mishaps, Pro Analysis |
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Comments
Nissan forked over $200+ million for that campaign, only to watch in horror as their sales actually went down. Yikes! How come? 
February 28th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Ommm….
Maybe it was a timed-release marketing campaign as you’re talking about it now ;). Okay, that’s total BS as the campaign failed since we STILL have to ask what company it was for even when the story of the failure is told.
I’d never heard the dollar amount Nissan lost though… $200 million! Makes you wonder how such a witty ad could have been improved to still be dynamic AND sell some cars.