There is a message behind Eugene Levy’s flowing hair, leather-based jacket and bravado in Nissan’s Tremendous Bowl spot.
The actor, recognized for his comedic roles, morphs into an motion hero when he will get behind the wheel of the redesigned Z coupe and zooms previous a brand new Nissan entry — the electrical Ariya crossover — within the course of.
Levy’s dramatic makeover is a nod to Nissan’s ongoing transformation.
Redesigned variations of the Frontier, Rogue and Pathfinder are available on the market alongside the just lately freshened Armada and Kicks. These automobiles shall be joined this yr by the reworked Z and the Ariya, the model’s second battery-electric automobile after the Leaf.
Allyson Witherspoon, chief advertising and marketing officer for Nissan U.S., needs viewers to see Nissan “in a special mild and in an sudden means” within the advert, which known as “Thrill Driver.” The spot additionally options actors Brie Larson, Dave Bautista and Danai Gurira, who’re all motion heroes in their very own proper, and Catherine O’Hara, who starred with Levy within the sitcom “Schitt’s Creek.”
The 60-second spot is slated to air within the fourth quarter.
“It’s a transformation story. One drive can change every thing,” Witherspoon instructed Automotive Information. “And also you see the transformation of Eugene Levy’s character in that as he will get into the Z, you get some comedic moments with him fumbling with the handbook gearshift. It’s this highly effective automotive that basically felt prefer it may inform the transformation story.”
That is Nissan’s first Tremendous Bowl spot since 2015, when it featured the GT-R LM Nismo race automotive in a story concerning the son of a race automotive driver rising up whereas his father was away, and solely the second since 1997.
Nissan has been operating a yearlong model marketing campaign because it updates its product portfolio, and with the Ariya and Z on the way in which quickly, Witherspoon stated the timing was proper to get again into the sport. The Nissan model’s U.S. gross sales rebounded in 2021, leaping 12 p.c to 919,086 because the trade recovered from the pandemic whereas coping with a world microchip scarcity. In 2020, the pandemic helped finish the model’s eight-year streak of at the very least 1 million gross sales.
Nissan determined to launch its spot greater than every week earlier than the Tremendous Bowl as a substitute of ready till the sport, as some manufacturers do. The model started teasing it Jan. 31 earlier than debuting it throughout NBC’s “As we speak” present Feb. 3.
The teaser trailers and the spot itself had drawn greater than 35 million views on YouTube as of Tuesday. Plus, Nissan’s crew of celebrities gave the spot and its teasers a push to their appreciable Twitter followings to amplify it much more.
“I feel it offers us a bit bit extra time for it to be embedded and to sort of soak in,” Witherspoon stated.
The tear-jerker strategy Nissan utilized in 2015 offers approach to humor this time round.
Larson, a Nissan ambassador who starred in Captain Marvel, pulls as much as a studio lot within the Z and tosses the keys to a reluctant Levy. Whereas getting a really feel for the Z, Levy regularly lets unfastened till stopping in entrance of a restaurant, the place Gurira and Bautista see him as they’re discussing a film script.
The plot abruptly turns, and Levy is now in an motion flick, pulling wild stunts within the Z with Gurira and Bautista as his companions. The advert then reveals them watching the film in a theater amid roaring applause.
The group later heads out to a ready Ariya, however Larson takes the keys from Levy this time and says she’ll drive.
“We knew that we needed to take a extra comedic tone — extra of a lighthearted tone,” Witherspoon stated. “I additionally suppose simply based mostly on the place we’re within the pandemic, with every thing else that is occurring, I feel there’s a little little bit of fatigue that is taking place, and folks wish to have a smile on their face.”