Nissan, Mitsubishi Prepare Ad Blitzes
On the heels of Toyota’s announcement that it will spend a record amount to advertise and promote its 2002 Camry, Nissan North America Inc. and Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America Inc. on Thursday launched campaigns for their own mainstream cars: the 2002 Altima and 2002 Lancer, respectively.
The U.S. arms of Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said they too will spend as much as on any previous launch, if not more. The ad spending spree by Japanese manufacturers underscores the importers’ intent to continue gaining market share in the U.S. passenger-car market at the expense of a troubled domestic car industry.
That spending also spotlights the importance of the new products, said industry analyst George Peterson of AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin.
For No. 2 Japanese auto maker Nissan, a company in the midst of one of the industry’s most-watched financial turnarounds, the new Altima “is the first really good mid-size car it has had for the U.S.,” Peterson said. “It is fully competitive, maybe more than competitive, with other cars in the class, and Nissan needs to spend money to get that message out.”
Toyota Motor Corp.’s Camry is the No. 1 Japanese auto maker’s “corporate jewel,” Peterson said, but has been selling to a steadily older buyer over the last decade. With the redesigned 2002 Camry, he said, Torrance-based Toyota Motor Sales USA is hoping to “break it of the old folks’ syndrome and is spending to sell it to a slightly younger demographic.”
Toyota has valued its campaign at $160 million; Nissan and No. 4 Mitsubishi declined to reveal how much they will spend except to confirm that their campaigns are among the most expensive they have run.
At Mitsubishi, with U.S. headquarters in Cypress, the Lancer is a replacement for the aging Mirage compact and is both a youth-market car and a vehicle that can help pull new buyers into showrooms. The Lancer is popular in Europe.
The music-oriented Lancer campaign by Deutsch Advertising, L.A. features a song from the rock group Barenaked Ladies as well as music from other youth-oriented artists in television spots that start Thursday. The yearlong campaign will include print, Internet and broadcast material and is an extension of the “Wake Up and Drive” campaign launched in 1999.
Toyota also is using a campaign heavily flavored with music meant to appeal both to younger buyers and the baby-boom consumers who make up the Camry’s main base.
Nissan, which leads the mid-size segment in horsepower, will take a different tack, positioning the Altima as the serious motorist’s “Cure for the Common Car,” said Senior Vice President Jed Connelly.
The Nissan campaign was prepared by longtime agency TBWA Chiat Day’s Los Angeles office.
Nissan intends to use print, direct mail, Internet and broadcast ads aimed at “buyers coming into the mid-size segment for the first time” from smaller cars such as the Toyota Corolla, Honda Motor Co.’s Civic and Ford Motor Co.’s Focus, he said.
