In Japan, cars no longer excite younger generations. Only 57% of 20 years old has driver’s license, 47% has their own cars. Yet, the car showrooms remain such a boring and unattractive space for young people.

We decided to change the boring showrooms into exciting and attractive space for younger generations to get their attention back to Nissan cars.

We found a fundamental excitement of cars in our natural behaviors from our childhood - the voice of “vroom vroom”. We planned to fill showrooms with this voice of excitement.

We developed VOICE DRIVER, the world’s first voice driving experience. Your voice converted into digital signal that propels cars. With this system, we transformed Nissan showrooms into the exciting voice-racing circuit.

The PR strategy was to hold the live event ‘VOICE DRIVER GP’ at Nissan global headquarters gallery and gather lots of media to spread the new driving experience.

Moreover, we also developed this system for an online experience. Voices from all over the world were transmitted to Tokyo, igniting race cars around the track.

VOICE DRIVER achieved great PR effect. The event triggered huge buzz through SNS and blogs as well as mass media exposure. Over $ 3 million free media exposure with 0 media fee. The number of visitors of Nissan showrooms jumped up to 160%. Then, that resulted in sales up to 112% compared to the previous year.

VOICE DRIVER successfully brought younger generation’s attention back to Nissan cars by creating all new in-store experience ever done before.

The goal was to change the boring showrooms into the exciting and attractive space for younger generations, elevating the Nissan brand, engaging a target segment and getting Nissan noticed across the media landscape. Ultimately, this would help Nissan emphatically declare that it stands for its brand tagline ‘Innovation that excites’.

Our target was younger generations who had lost interest in cars. Nissan needed to build an emotional connection with them, getting their attention back to Nissan cars.

Measurement of success was determined by:

- Free media exposure

- The number of Nissan showrooms visitors

- Sales of Nissan sports car

Business Goals:

- The number of visitors of Nissan showrooms jumped up to 160%.

- 112% increase in sales of Nissan sportscars compared to the previous year.

Communication Goals:

- Over $ 3 million free media exposure with 0 media fee.

- More than 11,000 people participated in the VOICE DRIVER GP.

- The number of Nissan websites visitors was up to 113%

- The sojourn time of Nissan websites was up to 3.3 times longer.

VOICE DRIVER successfully brought younger generation’s attention back to Nissan cars by creating all new in-store experience ever done before.

To best announce the live event ‘VOICE DRIVER GP’, we created the teaser video which described behind the scenes of developing voice-dri en car and uploaded it on Youtube in Oct 2012. This video won a ton of coverage in various kinds of websites: AdverTimes, CBCNET, TECH IN ASIA, Yahoo!News, CNN etc.

As a result, the live event ‘VOICE DRIVER GP’ (on Nov) attracted attention of a lot of medias: TVK-TV, CX-TV, Mainichi-NP, Yahoo.com, msn.com etc. The event took place for 10 days.

Moreover, we also developed this system for an online experience. Voices from all over the world were transmitted to Tokyo, igniting race cars around the track. At the same time, voices were automatically converted into letters on twitter. Also the sound of voice were posted on facebook so that your friend could listen to it. Shouts of participants were spread all over the world.

In Japan, cars no longer excite younger generations. Only 57% of 20 years old has driver’s license, 47% has their own cars. Yet, the car showrooms remain such a boring and unattractive space for young people. We needed an idea that brought younger generation’s attention back to Nissan cars, keeping the brand relevant in an engaging and impactful way.

Also, Nissan created a new tagline ‘Innovation that excites’ and we needed to create an experience that dramatically shows Nissan delivering the brand’s promise.

We found a fundamental excitement of cars in our natural behaviors from our childhood - the voice of “vroom vroom”. Based on this observation, we developed VOICE DRIVER, the world’s first voice driving experience. Your voice converted into digital signal that propels cars. With this system, we transformed Nissan showrooms into the exciting voice-racing circuit.

The PR strategy was to hold the live event ‘VOICE DRIVER GP’ at Nissan global headquarters gallery and gather lots of media to spread the new experience.

We leveraged the news that Nissan developed ‘the voice driven car’, maximizing PR opportunities and securing top-tier media placements across the landscape from national news to overseas blogs. A social media strategy also supported the national outreach, spreading the voices of participants via SNS.

The lively voices became a new PR media for this project, attracting people into the showroom, and igniting their passions for driving once again.