Mumbai: Nissan GT-R was launched in India in December 2016 in its premium edition, with the country’s first delivery being made to Bollywood action star and Nissan brand ambassador, John Abraham.
No other car has enjoyed the kind of welcome that the GT-R has enjoyed, now, the sportscar wants to give something back to the country and its people – a #LegendarySalute.
This Republic Day, the Nissan GT-R’s salute will honour India – the land where legends are born and bred. Orchestrated by Leo Burnett Experience, the activation arm of Leo Burnett India, Nissan created the largest outline of the map of India – armed only with the GT-R and the sand on Rajasthan’s Sambhar Salt Lake. Eminent rally driver Rahul Kanthraj was behind the wheel, well known for his precision in stunt driving and years of successful rallying. Under his expertise, Nissan GT-R recreated a 3 KM x 2.8 KM map of the country, in the only way it knows best.
To ensure accuracy, the map was created by plotting the co-ordinates on a GPS device and multiple laps were done to match the actual map. The exciting results were captured on video with drones and onboard cameras.
Speaking about the campaign, Mr Guillaume Sicard, President – Nissan India Operations, said, “It all started when we decided to do something exciting to celebrate Nissan GT-R’s arrival in India. Creating the biggest map of India was extremely challenging but the GT-R did it with utmost precision. We are proud of the resulting record and movie, and bringing more and more exciting cars to the people of India.”
And that isn’t all! The #LegendarySalute is even set to make a dent in the Limca Book of Records for the world’s largest outline of a country map. This is the largest map of the country to ever be made only with tyres, that too, on sand. In fact, Indians were looking forward to the salute eagerly, not quite unlike the anticipation they had for the launch, thanks to the teaser films that were released on social media.
Elaborating about the campaign, Vandana Verma, Executive Vice President, Leo Burnett Experience said, “To us, this was work that stems from Leo Burnett’s Humankind philosophy, of creating ‘acts, not ads. Leo Burnett Experience is about creating impactful work for our brands, and I believe the Nissan GT-R’s #LegendarySalute to Indians made the waves we set out to create.”
TEAM NISSAN INDIA CREDITS
President, Operations: Guillaume Sicard
MD: Arun Malhotra
VP – Marketing: Sanjay Gupta
DGM – Marcom: Jiveshdeep Singh Sandhu
DGM – Product Marketing: Vivek Goswami
Marketing Manager: Arun Sharma
Product Manager – GT-R: Imran Qadri
AGENCY CREDITS
Agency: Leo Burnett Experience
CEO, Publicis Communications, India: Saurabh Varma
EVP: Vandana Verma
VP & Business Head: Sandesh Shetty
National creative director: Nishith Sharma
Strategic planning: Rohit Nair
Account management: Prutha Karnik
Production House: Ignition Films, Onions Creative Media
Producer: Partha Sarkar (Ignition Films), Aanchal Bhargava & Anshul Jain (Onions Creative Media)
Director: Veneet Raj Bagga (Onions Creative Media)
Touchpoints: Digital, social, on-ground activation
