Global automotive company Nissan began steering towards the Metaverse in a campaign to promote its latest all-electric vehicle, the Ariya, it announced on Wednesday.
The Yokohama-based manufacturer announced a partnership between TBWA/London and Meta Creative Shop to debut the web3-ready marketing campaign.
Nissan’s ‘Electrified Art’ promotion challenges five UK artists to design artworks depicting the Ariya car in notable real-world locations. The campaign also hires Retro Manni from Birmingham, Tishk Barzanji from London, Janice Leung of Leeds, Neil Keating of Liverpool, and Antidote of Manchester.
Nic Thomas, the GB Marketing Director of Nissan, added,
“I am very excited to be able to promote Nissan as one of the first car manufacturers to utilise the metaverse in this immersive and inclusive manner”
During the promotion, attendees can scan a QR Code in a real-world location to display the immersive artwork digitally and at large-scale outdoor sites.
The event enables attendees to enter an augmented reality (AR) powered Metaverse experience. Nissan allows visitors to explore an immersive electrified city space via their smartphone camera.
Additionally, John Kirkham, Copywriter and Heber Ramos, an Art Director at TBWA\London, said,
“Electrified art’ is a campaign all about innovation, design and electrification. We worked with digital artists across the UK, asking them to reimagine their home cities electrified in the future. We broke the format of conventional car adverts with fresh, art gallery inspired out-of-home and online creative”
The digital Ariya will appear as an AR visualisation in the centre of the immersive experience, allowing visitors to get up close and personal to the artistic digital twin.
Nissan Adopts Extended Reality
In October last year, Nissan introduced plans to invest roughly $1.2 billion into extended reality (XR) solutions over the coming seven years.
The move enables the Yokohama-based firm to push its Intelligent Factory Initiative, which secures the automotive group with crucial smart technologies for an industry 4.0 workplace, including XR, artificial intelligence (AI), and internet of things (IoT) support.
The initiative also aims to improve factories operating in essential manufacturing plants, including Oppama and Kyushu in Japan. Also, Nissan is upgrading its US factories, including those in Smyrna and Canton factories.
Furthermore, Nissan is deploying mixed reality (MR) headsets at its Tochigi plant, providing immersive and automated production of the Ariya car – leading into this year’s promotional campaign.