Written Case – Nissan, “GT-R NFT”

Timing: 21 September 2021 to 13 November 2021

Challenges and Goals

The Nissan brand has always been positioned at the leading edge of innovation and technology, but an aging vehicle lineup caused its overall opinion scores to decline over the years in Canada. Now that Nissan was able to boast one of the freshest lineups in North America, we needed a campaign that would be reflective of Nissan's innovative spirit to help reclaim their credibility.

Enter the all-new Nissan GT-R Nismo, a shining example of Nissan’s innovative and technological prowess. But with only three enroute to Canada, there was no planned budget to support it. To use the GT-R to reframe consumers' perceptions of the Nissan brand, we needed an innovative idea that would breakthrough beyond expectations with minimal investment.

Insights and Strategy

The Nissan GT-R wasn’t just chosen for its technological achievements, but also strategically for the prestige it holds among car enthusiasts in Canada and for its huge following of super fans who are hyperactive on social, sharing fan art, video clips, and photography of the Nissan GT-R. In fact, #GTR has 9.6 million posts on Instagram alone. Any news about the GT-R was almost guaranteed to be picked up by the automotive press and shared by its fans across their social channels.

The other thing that makes headlines in the automotive community is limited edition models. The rarer a vehicle, the more desirable it becomes. To get the all-new GT-R the attention it deserved, and position Nissan as an innovative brand at the forefront of the latest technology trends, we made a limited-edition supercar even more super limited with the GT-R NFT: a 1-of-1 digital work of art created in collaboration with Canadian Futurist Alex McLeod. Then, we put it up for auction with a reserve price of $280,000 – the same price as an actual GT-R. The twist? Buy the GT-R NFT and get the keys to a real GT-R as well. 

We knew that by turning the GT-R into a 1-of-1 NFT with a striking, highly shareable key visual, we would capture the attention of the automotive community.

Execution

We launched with a teaser post on Nissan Canada’s social channels that highlighted the reserve price of the NFT. Then, we followed up with a video introducing the artist, and showcased a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made. Days before the auction we posted the GT-R NFT with a link to RubixMarket.com, the auction marketplace where people could view a high-res version of the digital art and place their bids. On Nissan.ca the key visual was also given prime placement on the homepage, with campaign details, and a link through to the auction website.

We shared our digital art through automotive PR channels, knowing that the combination of our striking visual, the extreme limitedness of the work, the unbelievable price tag, and the fact that it came with a real GT-R, would give automotive journalists more than enough to craft highly clickable headlines.

Results and Impact

The auction went live, and the bids started rolling in. And then, something strange 

happened. A 2.8-million-dollar bid came in, leaving all other bids in the dust! We got excited, and the GT-R NFT got even more traction. The bid turned out to be bogus, and the NFT went to the next highest bidder. But the hype was real. 

From launch to winning bid, the GT-R NFT was featured across 24 countries, in 133 media outlets, with 100% of them using our key visual. Word travelled across continents, from Top Gear in the Philippines, To DRIVE in Australia, and across genres, from the crypto space, to tech, finance, arts and culture, and HypeBeast. It was shared by over 260 Influencers.

Not only did we create a 1-of-1 NFT that came with the keys to a supercar, but in just 6 weeks, we brought Nissan’s passion for innovation to a reach of over 71 million, resulting in an estimated total media value of $585,000* to date, which is ten times the value of the investment in paid media.

All through the sale of one vehicle. 

*Average $15 CPM.