What happens when your agency gets too creative

12/30/08 04:18 PM

Creative people at agencies can sometimes live in their own little worlds. It would help sometime if they came down to earth for a taste of reality. Such is the case with the launch of the new Nissan Cube which is going to be introduced next spring here in the US. It's a small utility car meant to compete against the Mini and Scion and is a great design. The Nissan Cube website is not well done either it does not supply a lot of information and is more show than communicating information.

Well, when I first got the news I signed up to receive a CD-ROM on the new Nissan Cube and it came in the mail two days ago. It requires you to install a program and then you need to hold the brochure up to a camera on your PC in order to get certain information. What's wrong with this picture ? This is where being too creative gets in the way of customer needs. First the CD-ROM should not require an install as people tend to get nervous about installing programs on their computers. Second, what if the user does not have a camera on their PC? Third what happens if the user has a Mac? It would seem to me that a lot of people who maybe within the target audience might be Mac users judging from the number of Apple stickers I see on Scions.

The Cube could be a great hit here in the US. It's unique, is small and has a small engine so it should get great gas mileage. The campaign to launch this car is crying for a social media /viral aspect that could make it a runaway best seller without spending tons of dollars. However if Nissan continues to send out CD-ROMs that require people to "work" at them to get information they are going to have wasted a lot of dollars.

Tags: Poor execution