Nissan Establishing credentials in 4x4

In 2006, Nissan were known for producing nippy little city cars. Not much use when they decided to introduce a new range of consumer 4x4s to get a foothold in the growing SUV/crossover market. The brief originally was just for some idents for the action programme 24.

At the time, Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s ‘Long Way Round’ was on tv, and we noticed a massive spike in sales of the BMW adventure motorcycles that the pair rode in the series whenever it was on air. Struck by the coincidence (BMW wasn’t at the time known for adventure machines) the concept for ‘Adventures on the 24th Parallel’ was born.

We recruited the talents of conservationist, broadcaster and explorer Saba Douglas-Hamilton and sent her off with a crew on 4 separate adventures using 4 of the new vehicles. It took us from the skeleton coast of Namibia to the altiplano of Argentina all along the 24th parallel.

Adam Hinton the travel and war photographer came with us and his amazing, reportage shots formed the basis of a coffee table book that was given free to buyers and decorated dealers everywhere.

The films ran online (along with the 24 idents), and the UX of the site allowed you to follow Saba’s adventures, enjoy more in depth documentary pieces and also take part in a virtual race around the world. A campaign of targeted print media drove potential customers to the web experience.

A wonderful client let us film the 4x4s as they should be. Filthy. Covered in mud, salt and god knows what. Crashing through rivers, bouncing down sand dunes and edging around mountain precipices.

And in a nice twist, the Nissan 4x4s were adopted by Ewan and Charlie as support vehicles in their second adventure, ‘Long Way Down’.

What an adventure.