Nissan steers 24-minute ad towards younger market

Nissan is to launch its latest range of cars with a pioneering 24-minute TV advert that will be broadcast in a series of soap-like episodes.

The Japanese car manufacturer is hoping the new approach will help transform its image among younger viewers as a manufacturer of uncool cars.

The car maker is sponsoring the cult drama 24 on Sky One in the hope of catching the attention of its target market of early adopters. Unusually, Nissan is not putting the advert on terrestrial TV as part of its attempt to be cool.

In a £1.5m deal, Nissan will sponsor 24 and two other flagship dramas on Sky One, breaking up each episode of the advert to use as sponsorship idents during ad breaks.

"The desired consumer response we are looking for is for the target audience to say, 'There's something going on with Nissan'," said Paul Willcox, the marketing director of Nissan UK.

"Running it on [terrestrial] TV just because it's a good creative execution doesn't work with our target audience."

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