The hero of the first Patrol commercial proved instantly popular amongst 4×4 drivers and GCC Nissan dealers. This led our Japanese clients – Nissan and Standard Advertising – to insist on having the falcon appear in follow-up Patrol TVCs.
The falcon hunt had been on-air for almost two years when we all agreed that the time had come to refresh the message with a new commercial. We produced “The Desert Picnic”, which featured an Arab father taking his young son on a Friday picnic amidst the golden dunes. The son was fascinated because his father allowed him to hold the family falcon throughout the journey. Upon arrival at the camp, the father parks the Patrol and jumps out and joins his buddies. The son is seen with the falcon perched on his wrist in front of the Nissan Patrol.
The third commercial brought action back to the Patrol story, with the owner taking four falcon eggs on board in Abu Dhabi and delivering them to a friend in Saudi Arabia. They needed to be delivered as fast as possible, so rather than stick to the motorway the driver takes a shortcut across the Empty Quarter. The film featured quick cuts of the Patrol as it climbed challenging sand dunes and traversed steep wadis on its way to Riyadh, where the film closed in on the two friends sitting on the sand sipping tea, with a falcon on a stand in front of the Patrol.
By 2003, a great deal of change had happened in the region, which had a direct bearing on the client, the automotive industry, and my own relationship with Nissan. Realizing the importance of the Arab markets, the client established a company in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone under the name Nissan Middle East FZE. The client had moved to the center of the action and thus was alert to market changes and motorists’ changing tastes and brand affinity. This made interaction with the agency much quicker and easier. It also opened our eyes to the rapidly expanding urban landscape, especially in Abu Dhabi, where the national population was moving en masse into the capital city. More and more expats were coming to the UAE to work and they, too, caught the 4×4 bug. A new Patrol campaign was needed, but this time the brief had changed to show that the rugged 4×4 was as good in the city as it was in the desert.
By then I had established TBWA\RAAD, and the Nissan business had moved (with me) from Intermarkets to my new agency, where we had hired a new creative team, led by an executive creative director by the name of Kristian Sumners. An Englishman who had previously worked at TBWA\Hunt Lascaris in South Africa, Sumners was assisted by a Lebanese creative director called Kamel Barakat.
The new campaign was given the title “Patrol Conquering the City”, and because the creative concept was liked so much, Sumners suggested hiring the French director Gérard Pirès, who had directed the action comedy “Taxi” in 1998, as well as “Rends-moi la Clé”, “L’Entourloupe” and “L’Aggression” and other feature films.
The film opened on a falcon making a shrieking sound as it took to the air, while at the same time a huge parachute carrying a Nissan Patrol allowed the vehicle to land gracefully on the helipad where the falcon had been sitting. This made the camera tilt up towards the sky, following the falcon’s flight path. At that instance, the camera revealed dozens of parachutes falling from the sky, each carrying a Nissan Patrol. The cars landed on the visually recognizable helipads of Abu Dhabi, while others landed on city streets and immediately began to drive towards palace gates or the driveways of well-known five-star hotels. The final shot showed the last parachute landing on a helipad, followed by a shot of the falcon landing on its side mirror.
This final shot was used for the print campaign and large outdoor billboards. “Patrol Conquering the City” helped to develop Patrol sales amongst expats who had never ventured into the desert but wanted to own a high and strong vehicle that could provide their families with added protection as they moved around the city.