Nissan Likens Driving Its Qashqai to Skateboarding on the Moon

Where’s my jetpack?

That’s the question underlying one of the great existential disappointments of living in what’s ostensibly “the future.” Where are all the jetpacks and hoverboards we were promised? 

With help from TBWAG1, Nissan’s latest ad for Europe, “Moon Landing,” tacitly argues that the Qashqai crossover SUV comes close.

The work hits the ground on Tuesday and serves as a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing (to which we’ll be getting a lot of marketing tributes this week). In it, a man recounts the experience of watching the latter on TV on July 20, 1969. 

For those who witnessed it, the spectacle was momentous. The accompanying visuals pay full tribute to the way we romanticize sublime human benchmarks in memory: Leave your blurry, staticky flag-planting footage at home. Enter the moon-dune sandboarder. 

“One thing really puzzled us—how did he manage to stay suspended in midair for so long, with such confidence…? It looked like he was flying,” the voiceover marvels. Meanwhile, we transition from an astronaut skateboarding across moondust to, well, a dude smoothly measuring safe distance in a car outfitted with built-in ProPilot technology. 

“Technology is beautiful… when it moves us,” the work ends, adapting Nissan’s longtime “Technology that moves people” tagline.

Come on. He’s not even changing lanes! 

“Technology for the sake of technology is worthless. What matters is how it makes you feel,” says Xavier Diquet, Nissan Europe’s general manager for content and engagement. “At Nissan, this is exactly what we strive for—to give drivers a greater, more exciting, amplified driving experience, thanks to the power of Nissan Intelligent Mobility innovations.”

OK. Semi-autonomous driving technology comes stock in pretty much all new cars; we grant that it’s neither jetpack nor hoverboard. We also wince, just a smidge, at the comparison of a pretty much default automotive technology to, well, skateboarding on the moon, which no one’s done yet, as far as we know. 

But maybe this isn’t a bad reminder that the level of vehicular intelligence to which we are now accustomed hasn’t been around that long. For what it is, it remains miraculous. That we’ve so quickly gone blasé to the idea that cars will mind your blind spots, and even occasionally help you parallel park, is a tribute to how far we’ve come, and how quickly. 

The work will first go live on ITV, and will be supported by full 360 goodies: cinema, print, digital and social, with planning and media buying by Manning Gottlieb OMD. “Moon Landing” is also one example of Nissan’s larger effort to reposition itself as a tech company, versus just a car manufacturer. 

You know what’d do that for us, easy? Jetpacks.

CREDITS

Project : Nissan Qashqai Moon Landing
Client Nissan Europe

Marketing Communications, Connected Car Services,
Customer Experience Divisional General Manager: Gareth Dunsmore 
Europe Content & Engagement GM: Xavier Diquet
European Advertising Manager: Gaëlle Devitry
Content Coordinator: Guillaume Pelletier

Agency: TBWA
Nissan United TBWA G1

ECD: Eric Pierre
CD: Carl Harborg – Philippe Rachel
UK Creatives: Scott Andrews – Leigh Gilbert
President: Ewan Veitch
Account Management: Niall Hutchinson – Eva Gotteland
François Borel
Planning: Tito Favino – Chloé Cerdan – Mattia Bellomo

TBWA Else Production
President: Maxime Boiron
Producer: Guillaume Faurel
Post Producer: Severine Damolini 
Head of music & Sound: Olivier Lefebvre
Music & Sound design: Marianne Elise Simonot
Sound Engineer: Alexis Venot

Production Moonwalk
Director: Thomas Garber
Director of photography: Matthias Königswieser
Producer: Gaspard Chevance
Line Producer: Thomas Lepeutrec
Executive Production: Evidencia
Post Production: Mikros MPC Advertising
Supervisor: Fabrice Damolini
Post producer: Nicolas Huguet
Lead CGI: André Monteiro