Newsletter
Why These Nissan Print Ads Are Weirdly Perfect for Finland
Keep your clammy aura to yourself, thanks
Sometimes a simple idea is plenty. TBWAHelsinki promoted Nissan’s Automatic Distance Control feature by exploiting a funny little insight: When Finns wait for buses, the “crowd” disperses as widely as possible.
The results are print variants of a typical commuter scene.
“The people standing at the bus stop are a perfect match to represent Nissan’s safety feature. Both control distance automatically,” quips creative director Erno Reinikainen of TBWAHelsinki. “This everyday situation is something all Finns can relate to.”
The ads read, “Automatic Distance Control. Approved by Finns.” Another variant is shot in an even starker landscape than the last:
“Year in and year out, Nissan is one of Finland’s best-selling car brands. We want to nurture and improve this relationship through campaigns that are based on local insights,” Reinikainen adds.
The work is part of an effort to make Nissan, one big brand in a global alliance composed of other big brands (hello, Renault and Mitsubishi), feel more local to the Finnish market—hence the intimate insight and the focus on super-localized print work. Nissan Nordic Europe likes the campaign enough that it plans to explore more such opportunities.
You can hear the almost overwhelming Finnish enthusiasm in this quote from Veera Salo, marketing manager at Nissan Nordic Europe: “I’m glad that we could do a local campaign that has struck a chord with our audience.”
One last variant for the road, this time in a somewhat more urban environment:
Angela Natividad is the European markets editor at Muse by Clio. She also writes about gaming and fashion, and whatever else she’s interested in, really. She’s based in Paris and North Italy, so if you’re local, say hi. She might eat all your food.
