Defining and activating a brand promise
Nissan
Office: New York
Nissan went from individual product brands with fragmented strategies to a single strategy that all Nissan messaging, regardless of the model, is built around.
Nissan had ambitious business targets but recognized it would need a strong brand to deliver them. The CMO recognized the brand as a key driver for internal alignment, business success, product development and MarCom and asked Interbrand to provide a systematic way to manage the brand and engage the entire organization so that cross functional teams can prioritize what they are doing and understand the role they should play today in improving brand performance tomorrow.
Our comprehensive solution involved:
- A Brand Strength diagnostic across 14 markets
- Annual brand activation roadmaps, created via cross-functional workshops
- Support in delivering roadmap initiatives, taking the strategy off the page and making it real
- Brand Strength became a common language to engage the organization on brand
We created alignment and institutionalized a process to boost overall brand performance. Across agencies, geographies, stakeholders and the entire Nissan Brand Experience.
In order to fully activate the brand externally, we created a uniform, global brand engagement platform that provides clarity around what the Nissan brand stands for – giving each Nissan employee a clear role in bringing it to life.
We made sure the Brand Promise finds its way into upstream product development and downstream product communications – for each model. We also worked closely with Nissan to reimagine their auto retail experience and global sponsorship strategy.
Since becoming a brand-led company, Nissan’s global sales increased, and its brand value has grown significantly – from $3.8bn in 2011 to $10.6bn in 2020.