Designory won Silver for its development and production of the Nissan JUKE Color Studio for Nissan North America. The category is Elements of Advertising – Visual, Animation or Special Effects.
Nissan's division for accessories, Genuine Nissan Accessories, offers the only accessories designed and manufactured for Nissan vehicles. Facing stiff competition from aftermarket providers, the challenge is to persuade buyers to add accessories at the same time they purchase their car.
Of course, to create desire, you have to offer something people really want. And that's the idea behind the JUKE Color Studio – to take accessories out of the realm of floor mats into cool, do-it-yourself street fashion.
Designory created a short online video to increase consumer awareness of Nissan's first-ever Color Studio, the biggest news for both Nissan's accessories division and for their quirky sport crossover, JUKE. The video was designed to give consumers a taste of the range of colors and vehicle accents they can play with to transform their JUKE into a personal statement.
"To capture the emotion of color and turn it into something visceral, we portrayed color as physical objects that come crashing and bursting onto the scene.” Meg Crabtree, Senior Creative Director, Designory
We focused on the emotional impact of color, how even a splash of color can transform an object, an experience or your mood. Our concept was simple: color changes everything,” said Meg Crabtree, Senior Creative Director, Designory. “To capture the emotion of color and turn it into something visceral, we portrayed color as physical objects that come crashing and bursting onto the scene.”
Aesthetically, Designory looked to fashion photography and music videos, which met the objectives of elevating the image of accessories and appealing to the JUKE target buyer.
“We initially planned to do the video in CGI, but since we featured a bird in one of the scenes we needed to combine CGI and live action to stay within budget,” said Carol Fukunaga, Creative Director, Designory. “The feathers were a particular challenge – achieving a natural movement, that didn’t look mechanical.”
Special effects were added to simulate the transfusion of color to different parts of the vehicle. The way live action and CGI combined in the paint segment had to be seamless. A five-gallon bucket had to look like gallons and gallons. And while a lot of the paint seeping and oozing onto the car is real, special effects handled the tricky areas, like getting the paint to wrap uniformly around the outside mirror.
The guitar was made of resin – to shatter on impact. Then the special-effect shards breaking off the car had to look and behave like the actual guitar fragments. We had two specially built guitars on site, which meant only two takes to get it right.
“So in this case it is true. Color does change everything.” Meg Crabtree, Senior Creative Director, Designory
This line of color accessories was a first for Nissan. And the first time accessories played the starring role in a vehicle’s launch.
So in this case it is true. Color does change everything – including the impact of Nissan’s video. The 2-minute video was exclusively created for use on NissanUSA.com and Nissan's YouTube channel. Because of the positive response, it was also added to dealership media centers and auto show kiosks. The video was so well-received by the client, they asked us to create a dealership showroom campaign, plus it inspired a print ad executed by the advertising agency.
The American Advertising Awards, formerly the ADDYs, recognizes and rewards the creative spirit of excellence in the art of advertising through its local, district and national competitions. It attracts more than 40,000 entries every year.
Erica Amestoy
Group Director, Marketing Communications at Designory