Nissan’s delay in introducing tangible model changes had a negative influence on car buyers in our markets. The oil producing countries of the Arabian Gulf had witnessed a dramatic lifestyle change as their financial fortunes boomed, catapulting them into the throbbing heart of the 20th century. This meant they were suddenly living in a sellers’ market.
Nissan Patrol was losing ground to the Toyota Land Cruiser, which introduced major changes every year. It moved from being a box-shaped vehicle to a streamlined, modular one, and was also equipped with a fridge and stronger cooling. Then came the xenon headlights, the Bose music system and all the other developments. The Patrol, meanwhile, continued to survive on its changing door stickers, which led to a continued drop in sales and market share. The dealers were on the verge of revolting.
Our agency planning team took one of the new Land Cruisers and invited many young national car buffs to test drive it. The team filmed the drivers’ stunt driving and then recorded their comments. We showed the edited videotape to key Gulf dealers and, after securing their approval, sent the video to Japan with a presentation stressing the need for a major Patrol change. Not long afterwards, the agency and Nissan’s dealers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Saudi Arabia were summoned to Japan, where we were shown the clay model of a dramatically changed Patrol.
The new Patrol required a revolutionary campaign to pull the image of the “King of the Desert” out of the ditch. The brainstorming started jointly in Abu Dhabi, before too long we concluded that the findings of all the test drives being conducted by Nissan engineers in partnership with a professional, respected, and independent third party called the Emirates 4×4 Motoring Association. The association had been filming its attempts to conquer the gigantic dunes of Abu Dhabi in the new Patrol and in its 4×4 competitors.
Our big idea was to build the commercial around a very popular event held at the Big Red sand dune on the Dubai to Hatta Road. Every Friday, 4×4 owners gathered there to compete to see who could drive to the top of the dune without getting stuck in the sand. We wanted to show the new Patrol racing against the Land Cruiser, Pajero, Range Rover and all other 4x4s, although we were aware that comparative advertising (ads that show a brand’s competitors in the same TVC) were not allowed on any of the GCC’s television stations.
Selling such a bold concept was a tough challenge, first with Nissan, secondly with the dealers, and finally with the local TV stations, which were the most critical hurdle. Both Nissan and the dealers agreed to our reasoning, which suggested that if we – the agency – managed to convince the TV stations to air such a commercial, then Nissan would give us the money to produce the commercial.
Dubai TV was the most commercially minded of the lot. When we shared the storyboard with the station, it instantly expressed concern that the other carmakers would boycott Dubai TV. We had the senior executives of Emirates 4×4 Motoring Association on standby, together with a select pool of the footage for the tests it had supervised and filmed. The association included a large group of UAE nationals who were well known for all they had done in this field. Abdel Hakim Totah of Dubai TV quickly agreed but suggested that we wait until he received another layer of approval from Riyadh Al Shuaibi, Dubai’s TV big boss. To our luck, as we were leaving Abdel Hakim’s office, Sheikh Hasher Al Maktoum, director general of Dubai’s Department of Information, was on his way to his office along the same corridor. Sheikh Hasher stopped to salute two colleagues of ours from the motoring association, who were close acquaintances of his. When he heard why they were at the station, he turned to Totah and asked him to summon Al Shuaibi. Right there and then, Sheikh Hasher took the storyboard from my hands and wrote on it: “Cleared for airing on Dubai TV.” He then signed the storyboard and this signature turned out to be our enabler with TV stations in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Saudi TVs, so we rushed into production.
For the first time in the Gulf, “Patrol Back on Top” showed the Patrol’s competitors being overtaken one by one, with our hero the only vehicle to reach the top. The Toyota Land Cruiser had continuously surpassed the Patrol in terms of unit sales, but in April 2010 history was made when the Nissan Patrol sold 864 cars against the Toyota Land Cruiser’s 622.