Combining Nissan’s advanced engine technology, lightweight platform and an aerodynamically efficient body INVITATION is said to achieve class-leading levels of fuel economy and emissions. Nissan is aiming for an ultra-low CO2 emission target of under 100g/km for the most frugal model and with all versions eligible to wear Nissan’s Pure Drive badge.

At the same time, Nissan have designed the INVITATION Concept to offer responsive agile handling on a par with top performers in its segment.

But Nissan’s new concept is not just a good looking car, it’s also packed with some of their most advanced technology such as Around View Monitor (AVM) safety technology, which makes reversing and parallel parking as stress-free as possible, plus Nissan Safety Shield Technologies, which interacts with the driving environment keeping the driver aware of what is happening around the car.

François Bancon, Deputy Divisional General Manager of Product Strategy and Planning, said: “The name we have given to this concept is self-explanatory. It is designed to be inviting thanks to its sensuous exterior design and generous and comfortable interior space, cleverly packaged within compact overall dimensions.”

Due to be unveiled at next month’s Geneva Motor Show, the INVITATION Concept is due to be launched in the UK from 2013.

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Rather than base our Top-10 listing purely on video views and social shares, I thought it would be interesting to look a little closer at how well each campaign contributed to the ‘equity’ of each brand – the assets a brand is then able to use across its entire marketing mix.

In today’s highly networked business environment, the old adage “what get’s measured, gets done” is becoming something of a liability as marketing teams seek to justify their actions through quantitative analysis and attribution modelling, whilst often ignoring the factors which drive those results.

When something can’t be measured, does that make it not worth doing? Of course not. But in the rapidly evolving digital environment, that’s precisely what happens. We struggle to keep up with all the tools, platforms and new methods far less accurately measure them, so just like performance, lightweight construction or efficiency, automotive marketers sometimes need the intelligence to realise where taking the right action is equally as important as being able to justify it thereafter.

Ultimately, intelligence boils down to using the assets at your disposal in the most effective ways to achieve your objectives. Let’s see how well they did:

Top 10 Most Shared Automotive Ads of 2011 (not all released in 2011)

1. Volkswagen: The Force: Volkswagen Commercial  – 47.5 million views, 4,813,984 shares (32,618 comments)
2. DC Shoes: Ken Block’s Gymkhana Four; The Hollywood Megamercial – 13.1 million views, 2,111,150 shares (19,115 comments)
3. Kia: Party Rock Anthem-Kia Soul Hamster Commercial – 10.7 million views, 1,556,221 shares (12,748 comments)
4. Nissan: Pôneis Malditos – 13.9 million views, 968,124 shares (25,827 comments)
5. DC Shoes: Ken Block’s Gymkhana Three; The Ultimate Playground – 733,112 shares
6. Chrysler Eminem Super Bowl Commercial – Imported From Detroit – 15.4 million views, 436,016 shares (28,241 comments)
7. BMW 1M – Walls – MPowered Performance Part 1 – 3.0 million views, 407,505 shares (1,922 comments)
8. DC Shoes: Ken Block’s Gymkhana Two; The Infomercial – 341,980 shares
9. Team Hot Wheels – The Yellow Driver’s World Record Jump – 8.1 million views, 294,046 shares (4,177 comments)
10. Volkswagen: Black Beetle – 6.3 million views, 212,290 shares (2,371 comments)

Source: The data was compiled from Unruly Media’s Viral Video Chart at 15:00 (GMT) on 15 December 2011. The Viral Video Chart is the world’s largest, most comprehensive database of online social videos, and measures views and social shares based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2 million blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.

I could wax lyrically about the high-quality production values in our Top 10, their clever use of aspirational memes and how effective they are in conveying the personality of the brands they represent, but there’s an elephant in the room.

Nissan Brazil’s ad for the Frontier pickup, Pôneis Malditos, is not like other video ads. According to the Portuguese Blog the ad uses a play on words ‘do you have horse-power or ponies?’ A song then taunts the presumably-macho target customer with a chorus line that I’ll leave you to translate for yourself, ‘pônei maldito, pônei maldito’, since it’s definitely NSFW.

There’s a twist at the end where the cute little pony tells you not to close the video, followed by its evil twin who tells you that if you don’t share the video with 10 people, you’ll get the pony’s song stuck in your head forever. So it is basically the advertising equivalent of chain-mail spam. Such questionable tactics are unlikely to succeed more than once, so we’ll treat it as an anomaly in our 2011 list.

The remaining ads in our Top 10 illustrate the trend towards creating re-usable memes, enabling their brands to reuse the characters and storylines in other media campaigns and thereby reinforce the identity to which customers establish a relationship with. In last week’s interview with Ken Block of DC Shoes, he spoke about the value of building ‘personality’ into a viral video and we can see this type of character-based ad dominating the charts.

Top 5 Automotive Brands in 2011

If you’re anything like me, then you’ll not be satisfied with a Top 10 list of the most shared social media ads, you’ll want to know which car maker has really grasped the nettle and made social video a mainstay in their marketing plans.

Last year we singled out MINI, Ford and Kia for consistently performing above the pack, producing videos that were funny, entertaining and highly shareable.

But while humour is useful in generating strong viewing figures, like the sugary high of a Pina Colada the positive sentiment can quickly decline. Brands are now moving towards more epic ads, as spoken about recently by Unruly COO Sarah Wood, “More brands are realizing the potential of social video to build a high-impact, long-term emotional connection with their audience.”

This move towards a more sustainable level of engagement has raised the bar for what it takes to capture the audience’s interest, but in turn, people are sharing more videos with others in their social groups. In 2011, the top 20 ads across all sectors generated 25 million shares, a near five-fold increase from 2010 levels. However, the ratio of views to shares from 2011 to 2010 is even more interesting: In 2010, one in 39 people who viewed video content went on to share it online. In 2011, the ratio rose to 10 to one.

In comparing the Top 5 Automotive Brands we’ve yet again used data provided by Unruly Media’s Viral Video Chart, and we’ve then selected from campaigns within the Top 200 that ran during 2011.

There are several conclusions that spring to mind when looking through the above list. Firstly we know that the position of the first 3 brands is heavily influenced by big-impact campaigns which already feature strongly in our overall Top 10. However that should in no way detract from their significance, even if it does raise questions about their repeatability.

The one exception is Kia, which truly owns the Hamster meme, in much the same way as comparethemarket.com built a successful connection with its audience using a bunch of Meerkats. Kia’s ‘Black Sheep’ ad was the most successful automotive ad of 2010 and they’ve shown the ability to sustain the character’s impact.

Nielsen Automotive Advertising Awards voted the campaign the “Automotive Ad of the Year” in 2010, attributing a sales increase of 10% purely due to the halo effect it brought the brand.

Audi and BMW delivered the highest number of campaigns within our overall Top 200, although none reached the giddy heights of those from Kia and Nissan.

Audi’s top campaign was for the A8 (Big Game Commercial: Release the Hounds), which as with Volkswagen, benefitted from the Super Bowl TV viewing figures during February.

BMW’s strongest performance came from an unlikely source; a pair of ads produced by BMW Canada to promote the 1 Series M Coupe – both generated millions of views (3.0 million for Part 1 and 1.7 million for Part 2) and together generated more than half a million social shares.

They were certainly epic and ticked all the boxes for what makes a successful automotive ad. As an added bonus, not a single child or small cuddly animal was exploited to achieve their success, so perhaps there we should recognise them as a moral victor in the category of ‘Purist Car Ads’.

We would also like to acknowledge BMW’s success in maintaining a consistently high level of performance throughout the year, they were the only brand to reach 1 million views in 7 separate videos, with Volkswagen and Kia being next most consistent with 4 videos each.

Volkswagen were in a different league to the others during 2011. Principally because of their record breaking Mini Darth Vader ad (The Force), but they also achieved the highest overall shares per view of 8.63%, narrowly beating Kia with 8.43%. To add some context, before all this success goes to Volkswagen’s head, Gymkhana 4 achieved a shares per view performing of 16.7% making it by far the most effective automotive ad in terms of engagement.

We were in two minds whether to attribute any credit to Ford for Ken Block’s Gymkhana 4 video. Whilst Gymkhana 4′s primary goal is to promote DC Shoes’ clothing and apparel, Ford are a key partner in the campaign and have cleverly used Ken and his Hybrid Function Hoon Vehicle (H.F.H.V) to increase adoption of the Ford Fiesta through the parallel campaign, 43 Fiestas Challenge.

But if we stand back and take stock of the most effective Automotive social video campaigns of 2011, we see top-quality production values, the use of engaging characters and increasingly dramatic storylines.

One consequence of these attributes is that successful video ads are no longer cut down versions of their TV counterparts, but instead bespoke short films lasting anywhere between 2 and 9 minutes – the feature ad. The sales message, if there is one, is firmly hidden away and replaced by entertaining content and a viewing experience that encourages sharing and social conversation.

For 2012, this trend is set to continue, with the most successful brands being those who best understand their audience and embrace their role as entertainers and content providers. Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments below, or on Twitter.

With the build complete, engineers were checking that all systems work correctly before heading to Silverstone to push the car’s limits on a proper track. It looks like a Juke but sounds like a GT-R, and judging by the way it lifts its skirts and explodes towards the horizon it performs a lot like a GT-R – albeit with noticeably more body roll.

The shakedown and testing programme will allow the engineers to fine-tune the Juke-R chassis, as well as check the workmanship of the joint RML/Nissan Europe engineering team prior to registering both cars (one LHD and the other RHD) for use on the public road.

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You may remember us mentioning that a ‘track focused’ version was on its way, when we introduced the new 542bhp 2012 GT-R last month. What we didn’t know at the time was exactly how focused Nissan planned on making the GT-R, given it lacks very little apart from carrying a little too much weight.

But much as I’d like to tell you than Nissan had lopped 100kg off the GT-R in a move to match Porsche’s 911 GT3 RS, that’s unfortunately not the case (and I do realise that even 100kg would not be enough to out-RS Porsche’s GT3). What they have done is beefed up the brakes, tightened the suspension’s springs and dampers and fitted some nice Spec V-like Recaro front seats.

All right, maybe I was fibbing slightly about the weight-loss, the ‘Track Pack’ results in the rear-seats being removed and lightweight six-spoke RAYS alloy wheels being fitted (again, much like the Spec V), so it may be lighter, although perhaps not noticeable enough for Nissan to confirm a specific amount in their press release.

Nissan describe the upgrades as being “..for drivers who want an extra edge on the race track” and yet despite the changes, the GT-R remains fully road legal.

Externally the Track Pack is easily identified by those six-spoke RAYS alloys with gloss black painted centres, whilst the brakes behind these are cooled by additional cooling ducts built into the front bumper. These reduce the operating temperature of the front brake discs by as much as 100 degrees during track use, improving the stopping performance. Similar ducts, hidden behind the rear wheels, channel cooling air over the rear discs.

To reflect this GT-R’s harder edge, the suspension’s spring rates have been revised to be optimal for track use. Like all GT-Rs though, the dampers are adjustable to offer more comfort when the car is being used on the road.

Engine power remains the same as the regular 2012 model GT-R, which means 542bhp of power, 632Nm of torque and a 0-60 mph time of just 2.7 seconds.

Inside, the Recaro front seats are trimmed with blue bolsters and a new high-grip material to keep the driver in place during hard cornering and braking ( I thought that’s what the seat belts were for..). A ‘Track Pack’ emblem on the centre console identifies the model as a special GT-R, as does the additional £10,000 withdrawn from your bank account taking the price of the GT-R (with Track Pack) up to £84,450.

Orders are being accepted now at any one of the 21 Nissan High Performance Centres around the UK, with first deliveries expected from March 2012.

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The deal sees Brundle senior reunited with Nissan, after the Englishman spearheaded its official works effort at the world’s oldest and most celebrated endurance race in 1997 with the R390 GT1.

Nissan’s R390 GT1 driven by Martin Brundle at Le Mans in 1987.

For 2012, the father and son combination will pilot the race-winning Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN-Nissan sports prototype. Not only did the car take the LMP2 class win at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans (in the hands of Karim Ojjeh, Olivier Lombard and Tom Kimber-Smith) on its way to finishing eighth overall, but victories at Le Castellet, Imola and Silverstone also saw the Nissan-engined LMP2 car capture both the 2011 Le Mans Series drivers’ and team titles.

After enjoying a successful Formula One career spanning 13 years (1984-96), Martin Brundle has remained in the sport as a highly-regarded and multi award-winning commentator.

Martin Brundle winning at Le Mans in 1990 with Tom Walkinshaw’s Silk Cut Jaguar team.

Joining him in the driver’s line-up for the 80th running of the race will be his 21-year old son Alex.

As the leading British driver in this year’s Formula Two Championship, he will join Greaves Motorsport in 2012 to race the Nissan-powered prototype as the team defends its Le Mans Series crown.

The Brundles will follow in the footsteps of a small number of father-son combinations to have competed at the illustrious race together, including Mario Andretti, with son Michael, and Nigel Mansell with sons Leo and Greg.

Martin Brundle, 52, said: “I’m very much looking forward to returning to the Le Mans 24 Hour race with Nissan and the Greaves Motorsport LMP2 team. This is an unexpected pleasure, heightened by the fact I will be team-mates with my son. I’m eagerly anticipating a very special feeling when handing the car over to Alex during one of the world’s greatest motor races. Class victory in front of the fanatical Le Mans spectators is the goal.”

http://www.skiddmark.com/?p=25993 It feels so wrong… and yet you know you want to try it. Just once. While nobody is looking. The Juke-R is one of those cars that no enthusiast can deny wanting to drive, to sample the absurdity of its near-500 bhp powerplant shoe-horned into a conventional(ish) family crossover.

And yet like most temptations, I suspect that ‘once’ would never be enough, in fact strap me into this beast and you’d have a hard time prising me out again – however I’m really not a fan of its looks, hence the reason I’d feel obliged to stay inside..

These are the first videos which capture the sound of the Juke-R’s 480 bhp 3.8-litre engine as the beast springs to life. Dubbed the world’s fastest crossover, Juke-R is a one-off concept car that combines the power, speed and handling of Nissan’s flagship GT-R sports car with the odd design of the Juke crossover model.

As you can see from the images, Nissan see the Juke-R as ‘a bit of an animal’, rebellious, tempestuous even, but also a whole heap of fun. And then some.

From its matt black finish to its extended wheel arches and 20″ RAYS forged alloy wheels, there can be little doubt this is a car to provoke supercars and serve up a healthy dose of embarrassment at the track.

Large, provocative vents in the front bumper provide cooling for the Juke-R’s twin turbo V6 engine, while subtle submerged ducts in the bonnet help draw air through the engine bay.

At the rear of the car a dynamic split wing provides this super-crossover with downforce, while twin pentagonal exhausts emit an amplified version of the GT-R’s evocative engine note.

Inside, the Juke’s motorcycle-inspired console is at the centre of a modified interior cabin fitted out to go racing complete with twin race seats, full race harness and a race-spec roll cage. GT-R steering wheel, pedals, dials and 7-inch touch-screen display are built into a modified version of Juke’s dashboard.

As you will already be aware, the Juke-R is unfortunately not a production car but instead a special, road legal concept car. Two versions of the Juke-R are being created – one in left-hand-drive and one in right-hand-drive and Nissan will be testing customer response to ‘some’ of the concept car’s features for use in a future sports version of the Juke road car.

Alas, no matter how loudly we shout, the engine is unlikely ever to reach the options list of a production car – but then I’m sure some enterprising folk will study the 5 preceding build-story videos and come up with something similar.

The Juke-R will go into testing in late November before it’s unleashed to appear at PR events and speed festivals across Europe in 2012.

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Three years later Nissan facelifted the GT-R, but more importantly upped its power to 522 bhp due to revised engine mapping, changes to valve timing, larger inlets and a revised exhaust system. Job done then.

Just over 12 months later Nissan have moved their flagship model further out of reach, now offering 542 bhp and a wholesome slab of 632Nm torque from 3,200 to 5,800 rpm. It’s a good job BMW took the pre-emptive move of turning the latest F10 M5 up to 552 bhp.

Nissan’s 2012 GT-R gains more performance, agility and efficiency… plus a special new ‘Track Version’ for the UK and Japan only.

Engine

The changes made to bump the 2012 GT-R up by an extra 20 bhp and 20 Nm, are more extensive than you might realise.

Engine response and torque at mid and low-speeds, and power at high revolutions, has been significantly improved, mainly due to:

• Improved intake efficiency
• Better air flow resistance, which has been reduced by the addition of an intake manifold fitted to the head of each unit and the use of resin in the enlarged air intake duct for the intercooler.
• Improved exhaust emissions efficiency and enhanced control.
• Reduced air flow resistance thanks to a more compact under floor catalyser which improves emissions efficiency and reduces weight.
• Improved exhaust valve cooling performance by the adoption of a newly-designed metallic sodium-filled valve. At the same time, valve control timing, the air mixture ratio and ignition timing have been improved.

Upgrades for the 2012 model are not just about the GT-R’s performance – fuel economy has also been improved, albeit by an insignificant amount from 23.5 mpg to 24 mpg (combined).

Elsewhere

Nissan have applied their kaizen-philosophy throughout the rest of the car, improving the quietness and feel of the GT-R’s transmission and reinforcing parts of the body to improve stiffness. But perhaps the most evident step towards perfecting the GT-R can be demonstrated by the changes in its suspension – to account for the added weight of the driver in a right-hand drive vehicle coupled to the fact that the propeller shaft for front wheels is located on the right side of the vehicle; the GT-R’s suspension in RHD versions has been set asymmetrically.

What this means in practice is there’s now a harder spring rate on the front left side suspension while at the rear the suspension arm has been installed upwards on the left side and downwards on the right.

This means an imbalanced wheel load when the car is stationary, but which is equalised during driving, providing improved responsiveness, smoothness and steering feel, as well as enhanced cornering stability and riding comfort (for right-hand drive cars only).

Subtle changes have also been introduced to the GT-R’s dashboard including blue lighting, which has been added inside the tachometer ring to match the shift position indicator light and giving a more sophisticated atmosphere to the cockpit.

New ‘Track Focused’ variant

This is the real news we’ve been waiting for. The feud between Nissan, Porsche, Chevrolet and Lexus over the Nurburgring production car record shows no sign of abating, although the GT-R’s greatest handicap has always been the additional weight it carries.

So, Nissan are introducing a track-version of the GT-R for the UK and Japanese markets, which is designed for customers who want to enjoy a more track biased driving experience in their cars.

Nissan have yet to disclose the configuration of this limited-edition variant, but it sounds like there is more to it than fitting a few after-market parts and therefore it’s likely to be a full factory model.

We are told that further details of this new variant and pricing of the MY2012 GT-R, will be available early next month.

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And whilst Nissan’s Juke-R appears to push all of those buttons, I can’t help wondering what’s the point? Of course you could say the same thing about a Porsche Cayenne Turbo or BMW X6 M..

Nissan revealed the new Juke-R to an unsuspecting audience at yesterday’s Qashqai media launch in Malaga, Spain, which marks its first public appearance. Harnessing the power of the company’s flagship GT-R in the oddly designed Juke, Nissan hail their new showpiece as the ultimate compact crossover.

Whilst it would be easy to laugh at such a pointless vehicle, we understand the Juke-R is being used as a testbed for development of a more sporty Juke, likely to offer a little over 200 bhp.

Nevertheless, the Juke-R is already a marketing success. Videos charting the design and build of Nissan’s super-crossover have clocked up over 1 million views on YouTube during the past 3 weeks, along with thousands of conversation threads on blogs, forums and social networks.

Just two versions of the Nissan Juke-R are being created, one in each of left-hand and right-hand drive. The cars have been developed by Nissan and are being built by leading motorsports outfit RML with input from Nissan Technology Centre for Europe (NTC-E). Testing of the car will begin in November.

Unperturbed by such trivial economic circumstances, the folks at RML and Nissan Technical Centre for Europe (NTC-E) just couldn’t resist answering the question, “What do you get when you cross a Nissan Juke with a Nissan GT-R?” So the one-off concept will now be built to test the public’s reaction to a seriously sporty Juke.

But do they ‘really’ need to ask our opinion on a niche version of a car which already polarises opinion? I’m already loving it, and yet hating myself for doing so..

Under the bonnet is a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6 engine adopted directly from Nissan’s flagship supercar. Under the boot floor hides the GT-R’s six-speed transaxle, with the front and rear ends joined by a modified GT-R 4WD driveline and prop shaft, while chunky 20-inch RAYS forged alloy rims fill each wheel arch.

The Juke-R is no stealth machine – the addition of flared wheel arches, revised front and rear bumpers plus a unique split rear wing making its intent clear for all to see.

Inside the Juke’s dashboard has been transformed to accommodate the gauges, dials and 7-inch customisable LCD display from the GT-R. The Juke’s iconic centre console, inspired by the fuel tank of a motorcycle, remains while the rest of the interior has the look of a machine bred for the track.

Only two Juke-Rs will be created, one in left-hand-drive and one in right-hand-drive, which are expected to complete first tests in November.

Twin race-seats with five-point harnesses sit inside a visible roll cage that provides FIA safety standards of protection as well as enhanced torsional stiffness for a chassis that was designed for less than half the power.

“Nissan Juke is one of the most exciting cars on the market today. Its bold crossover design has captured the imagination of car buyers all over Europe; after just a year on sale we are celebrating sales of more than 100,000 units,” said Paul Willcox, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Nissan in Europe.

“Juke lends itself perfectly to a sports derivative and Juke-R explores that territory. Equally at home on road and track, Juke-R showcases two of the most exciting cars in our range and highlights the technical innovation that drives Nissan. This car will more than live up to the dynamic driving experience we engineer into all our cars.”

You can follow progress of the Juke-R, by visiting Nissan’s Juke Facebook page, where you can also vent your appreciation (or frustration) of the project.

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But Nissan have decided to change all that, bringing out the Dark Side of the Juke in a limited edition ‘Kuro’ variant. Kuro means black in Japanese, and Nissan are offering the Juke Kuro in a choice of two metallic paint finishes: Pearl Black or Force Red – with appropriately darkened wheels.

Based on the top-of-the-range Tekna grade, the Kuro features new ten spoke, 17-inch alloy wheels finished in gloss black along with black door mirrors and handles.

Only 700 examples of Kuro will be produced for the UK, starting with a 1.6-litre petrol engined version priced at £17,395 right up to the flagship 187 bhp turbocharged DIG-T version at £18,995.

Each car will be fitted with a special numbered plaque fitted to the centre console and is available to order now, with deliveries expected from 1st October 2011.

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