As official sponsor of Rio 2016, Nissan do Brasil came up with the idea of helping build complete athletes for the Games and created Team Nissan, a group of 30 sponsored athletes for the Olympic and Paralympic Games that embodies the Olympics’ and Nissan’s brand’s spirit. It was meant to be the strongest pillar in the company’s Olympic Project.

Different from most of the traditional sports sponsorship programs, the athletes had no money paid directly. Instead, Nissan gave all team members a Livina XGear, made in Brazil, and an off-the-court preparation and inspiration. Two coaches were chosen to guide the young talents over the next four years: Hortencia Marcari, Olympic silver medal winner in basketball and all-time basketball hall of fame, and Clodaldo Silva, multi-Paralympic Games gold medal winner in swimming.

By giving the athletes a car (many of them had never had one before!), Nissan wanted to ensure efficient mobility and, consequently, better training conditions. For preparing complete athletes, Nissan started with organizing media and social media training (part of the communication strategy) and will continue developing other skills in the team as after-retirement management and anti-doping regulation.

Such an innovative and exciting sponsorship project needed a captivating and creative launch, along with consistent PR strategy and athletes preparation to the launch.

As a result, the press coverage to the sponsorship announcement and Team Nissan’s launch reflected the key messages exactly. Athletes were engaged and the program was described as innovative.

The Team Nissan’s campaign and launch briefing, creation, approval and execution took 40 days. It turned out exactly as it was meant to: a great show of different sports sharing the Olympic spirit.

It was held in three days in Rio de Janeiro. Athletes from 11 different states were interviewed (video) and photographed for further media kit use. Teammates learned about their performance plan and were introduced to Nissan’s strategy for the Brazilian market and the 2016 Olympics. They have also been introduced to Team Nissan’s coaches Hortência and Clodoaldo and heard inspirational words from Adriana Behar (beach volleyball Olympic medal winner) about the Olympic spirit.

They had been through media and social media training in the second day.

The third day was of the launch itself, which took place in an official venue of the Rio 2016 Games: the beautiful Rowing Stadium.

Athletes Eleudis Valentim (judo), Rosangela Santos (athletics) and Isabela Ramona (basketball) got their first car, as well as the Paralympic Athletes Dirceu Pinto (boccia) and Edenia Garcia (swimming), who got adapted vehicles.

Paralympic champion Jovane Guissone (fencing) moved from taking two buses and one train – a three-hour travel from home to training site – to a 40-minute car ride.

During the launch, the program delivered highly engaged athletes who became Team Nissan’s advocates through spontaneous personal posts on the web and comments to the media.

Key messages such as 'innovative sponsorship program' and 'Nissan helping make complete athletes' could be seen on articles and TV.

78 journalists representing 31 communication outlets attended to the launch and published over 200 stories. The Investment Return reached around US$ 5 million.

The launch format and concept served as guideline for further events specific for Team Nissan and for Nissan do Brasil as a whole.