"This is either the stupidest idea ever or the most brilliant co-promotion for two brands in the history of mankind.
Starting this email off RACING. I know, that’s a bold statement, but one that has substantial merit.
What two brands am I talking about?
Well, I’m glad you asked.
The year was 2008, the financial crisis was in full effect, the auto industry was struggling, and nearly all discretionary income was wiped away from Americans.
What did that mean? No one was buying cars and certainly no one was spending money on entertainment products like video games. That was until Nissan and Sony revved up a campaign (I LOVE puns) so impactful they’re making movies about it in 2024.
Marketing Student, let me introduce you to the Nissan and Sony GT Academy…
Launching in 2006, Nissan's Director of Global Motorsport, Darren Cox, had an outlandish idea to host a small event for Gran Turismo video game players to compete (a racing simulation video game published by Sony) online AND on an actual racetrack. The winner would receive a Nissan 350Z (pictured below).
After generating some initial buzz, Nissan decided to form an official partnership with Sony and launched the Nissan GT Academy. The first year of the GT Academy was in 2008 and over 25,000 contestants entered the online races.
The entire goal of this partnership? To see if the skillset that it took to win an online racing tournament could translate to an actual racetrack. An INSANE concept.
In the first year, 23-year-old Spanish MBA student, Lucas Ordonez, outpaced the entire online competition, helping him advance to the final which consisted of 5 days of professional race training in actual Nissan 350Z’s. Months before, Lucas was on his couch studying for finals, now he was driving 180MPH at the home of the British Grand Prix.
Coming out of the Academy finals as champion, Lucas joined the Driver Development Program and earned his international racing license. Yes, let me say that again. What started as an E-Sports tournament produced a professional racing driver who was set to join a former Le Mans Champion (one of the most prestigious races in the world) to compete in the Dubai International 24 Hours.
Like WTF.
The initial reaction in the market was that the entire academy was a Marketing stunt, Nissan’s racing competitors scoffed at the GT Academy. They weren’t wrong, the partnership was making a massive headway for both brands, an incredibly clever campaign. But then the dominance of the GT Academy couldn’t be denied.
Only 3 years after being the first graduate of the Nissan GT Academy, Lucas Ordonez placed 2nd place at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 1st at the Zhuhai 6 Hours in China. Two MASSIVE showings for the gamer turned driver.
Yes, in a car draped in Nissan and Sony branding, Ordonez took the racing world by storm.
I’m going to nerd out real quick, what is the genius behind sponsoring a race car? You need to hit your customers at multiple points during their days. It’s not just enough to focus on FB ads, you need to hit your target audience when they’re listening to their favorite podcast, when they’re driving to work passing billboards, and even while they’re relaxing watching their favorite sport. While paid ads on social are effective, consumers aren’t scrolling on TikTok all day, there’s other ~less saturated~ opportunities out there, explore them in 2024.
Now lets get back to it…
This all sounds like something from a movie right? Well, in 2011 the world was introduced to Jann Mardenborough, the 2011 GT Academy winner, and the movie script began to write itself. 3 years after the start of the GT Academy, Jann, the youngest GT Academy winner ever (19 years old) came out victorious over 90,000 other final contestants.
Jann became a professional racing driver, competing at the highest level in Super GT & Super Formula, two prestigious racing series in Japan. And in 2015 was featured in a list of the 50 most marketable athletes in the world, with the likes of Leo Messi, LeBron James, and Serena Williams. THAT'S the impact this underdog story had.
As wild as the story is, the Marketing wizardry of it all is even crazier.
Netflix just premiered ‘Gran Turismo’ this past December, documenting the journey of Jann Mardenborough, from his desk chair playing video games, to the race track driving 180 MPH in front of thousands of spectators. After its release, ‘Gran Turismo’ lived in the U.S. top 10 charts for 3 weeks, peaking at #4 on the list.
And before you even ask, the movie was distributed by Sony and Nissan is featured throughout the entirety of the film. In the B2B media world I call this the sawdust approach to content Marketing.
Think about what it takes to build a table (tons of research, time, and teamwork), and then there is all the sawdust that is left to the sides, which you can’t let go to waste. The sawdust approach is all about maximizing the distribution and use of your efforts.
In Nissan and Sony’s case, the table they built is the GT Academy and they collected all of the sawdust to put together the ‘Gran Turismo’ film, efficiently extending the shelf life of the entire academy. In B2B media your newsletters, blogs, and podcasts are your table, you spend hours preparing and becoming an expert on the topics you speak about in those forms of media.
And your sawdust is the bits of info you can collect from the long form content, to post on Twitter, make short form video content, or create a LinkedIn carousel.
So what was the impact of the entire GT Academy?? As of 2022, Gran Turismo has sold 90 million units worldwide across the entire series. That is over $4.5B in revenue. CRAZY. On top of that the GT Academy tv series released in 2012 attracted 120M viewers, and in 2010 the global media value of the 2010 European GT Academy competition was valued at more than $38 million.
In its first year only 25,000 people entered the GT Academy, word spread and the second competition in 2010 drew in 1.1M entries. Then in 2013, the online qualifying period for GT Academy had 1.3M entrants over 4 weeks, with only 1 driver coming out on top.
Winning the 2011 Media Weeks Awards, Best International Campaign, along with 5 other international Marketing awards wasn’t enough to keep the program running past 2016. Due to internal disagreements in 2016, Darren Cox (the originator of the academy) decided to leave Nissan.
1 of the biggest reasons companies don’t scale their social media efforts:
Lack of bandwidth and time. It’s a real thing - you know, I know it, time is very much not on our side.
That's why some of the biggest names use Measure Studio.
They have Powerful features designed to maximize social team output without consuming more bandwidth - content groups, reports, and tags can be shared across teams to improve collaboration, communication, and performance. They give us time back - phew.
MARKETING CHEAT SHEET (WHAT TO LEARN FROM THIS CAMPAIGN)
Omnichannel. You need to hit your customers at multiple points during their days. It’s not just enough to focus on FB ads, you need to hit your target audience when they’re listening to their favorite podcast, when they’re driving to work passing billboards, and even while they’re relaxing watching their favorite sport.
Sawdust. Maximize the impact of your long form pieces of content. If you film a podcast, find a way to cut it up into 10 short form videos for TikTok. If you write a newsletter, find a way to cut it up into 5 quick-hitter Tweets. If you write a blog post, find a way to make it into a LinkedIn carousel. Excelling in media is all about extending the shelf life of your content! Follow in Nissan and Sony's footsteps.
Think outside the box. It can be easy to get caught up in our day-to-day execution that we forget to spend time ideating. To truly come up with revolutionary ideas (like the GT Academy) you have to give yourself the time and space to think. Whether it's once a week or once a month, carve out that time and make it a habit in 2024.
IN A MEME
Ahh, the bell has rung. Please be sure to do the reading (follow The Marketing Millennials on LinkedIn and me, Professor Millennial, on Twitter).
Off you go, passing period is only 11 minutes and there’s already a line at the *VROOM*, sorry the cars just keep zooming by. There's already a line at the *VROOM*.
ANYWAYS, I'm stoked for F1 to come back next month!! If you watch F1 reply back to this email with your fav driver!
Until next time,
Daniel Murray aka Professor Millennial.
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