Nissan Rogue Cell Phone Advergame

It seems as though the automotive industry is one of those the most in-tuned (get the double entendre?) to the latest marketing and advertising techniques. Again and again, I find myself posting on car companies that are making advergames (see my Scion post Here, and my Toyota Yaris post Here). It seems as though Nissan has decided to follow the recurring trend of a car company creating an advergame in order to market to a younger, extremely tech-savvy generation of car buyers.

Nissan is supposedly doing this in an entirely new way in the auto industry (though this is a self-stated claim); they have designed an advergame for their new Nissan Rogue vehicle which is to be used on mobile cell phones, but downloaded online. This game is to be one of several online “ad units” centered around the branding of the Rogue that people will be able to download onto their phones. The game is slated to be rather advanced, as far as cell phone games go, with accelerating levels of difficulty for the player. According to This Article from CNNMoney.com, “Additionally, the Rogue Mobile game breaks new ground with respect to performance tracking and measurability, delivering an unprecedented level of data and consumer insights back to Nissan.”

The game itself, and the rest of the digitized online content that accompanies it, was developed and produced by MangoMOBILE, of Omnicom, in affiliation with TEQUILA\, which is a subsidiary of TBWA Worldwide. Jamie Wells, VP of Strategy & Client Services at MangoMOBILE had this to say about the advergame and the online campaign in general: “While many are content with entering the mobile marketing space via simple text campaign, it's always great when a client like Nissan comes along and shows real initiative ... encouraging our strategists and developers to really push the envelope and launch a breakout mobile campaign that spans mobile gaming, online advertising, text distribution and even downloadable wallpapers. We are thrilled to be working with TEQUILA\ and Nissan on the Rogue launch, and look forward to working with them on even more innovative, more forward-leaning mobile marketing campaigns in the months and years to come.”

Nissan’s ultimate goal of this campaign sounds strikingly similar to that of Scion’s goal for its Little Deviants advergame. Robert Brown, Senior Manager of Interactive Marketing for Nissan in North America, explains “While the mobile medium is a perfect fit for the Nissan Rogue brand, we knew that we had to make it easy for consumers to discover and ultimately acquire the Rogue mobile content.” While Brown refers to the ease with which people can download this game online, he also subtly hints at one of Nissan’s goals for this campaign: increasing word-of-mouth. Nissan seems to be trying out the very same process of consumer self-discovery of the brand that has worked so effectively for Scion (yet again, check out my old post Here). Long story short, if something works the first time, use it again…and if something worked for someone else, emulate it to the best of your abilities and use it yourself.