Nissan’s Infiniti Revs Up Consumer Engagement Drive For Asian Growth

Alongside ‘Beyond Your Numbers’, Infiniti will also unveil a more traditional TV commercial ‘Thrones’ in March to promote the brand’s latest model QX80 SUV. Infiniti is banking on the timeless trope of ambitious underdogs triumphing, and obviously how the challenger brand is the car du jour for them.

According to the ASN Index, carmakers have invested almost US$603.9m in Asia’s branded content landscape since Q215 to engage consumers in the region.

While it’s has become a trend for automobiles to talk less about their core products and focus on aspirational values in recent years, Infiniti, which still has relatively low recognition as a brand, stands somewhere in between.

Speaking to Campaign Japan, Melissa Bell, Infiniti’s head of global marketing, said it’s about “going beyond the category conventions of tech and spec” to present inspiring stories.

“It’s the first stake in the ground to telling the brand story,” Bell said. The ‘Thrones’ spot might seem a bit off-narrative, but she explained that it aims to promote the notion of shared success.

“We see it as a continuation of the story,” she said. “Cultural convention is around individual success, but for us as a brand, it’s about success being better when it’s shared.”

Despite China being Infiniti’s second-largest market after the US, Bell admitted brand awareness is still too low, especially in the rest of Asia. In Interbrand’s 2018 Best Global Brands ranking of Japanese brands internationally, car brands dominate.

Toyota, Honda and Nissan occupy the first three spots, with Lexus—the closest equivalent to Infiniti—at 11. Infiniti itself is nowhere to be found in the top 40…And Bell sees deeper storytelling as one of the ways to remedy this issue and strengthen the brand’s perception among consumers.

While the current work features the stories of celebrity endorsers, including NBA star Stephen Curry, Bell thinks it will be important to present more facets of Infiniti’s own story. “People don’t know the core DNA of the brand,” she said, noting that tactical communications have taken precedence. “We are very focused on building the car around the driver and this connects to human-centricity and even Japanese hospitality.”

She also added Infiniti Lab, an accelerator program for entrepreneurs, and the Infiniti Engineering Academy will also feature more prominently in brand communications this year. “These stories haven’t been told. The meaning of the logo—the crescent is intended to show the endless road on the horizon. Our consumers are interested not just in buying a car but the philosophy of the car and brand and buying into that”, she said.

While ramping Infiniti’s brand awareness would inevitably lead to greater consumer engagement, the bigger challenge might be something more fundamental with a more distinctive lineup of cars, instead of comparing them to other luxury models from the likes of Lexus, Mercedes and BMW.

However, Bell believes Infiniti has already addressed that issue and as awareness increases in a market, so will sales. Indeed, sales are up. Infiniti sold 246,492 units globally last year, a 7% increase on 2016.

China continued to dominate consumption in Asia with drivers there buying more than 48,000 cars, but the company points to Taiwan as a new relative success story, with a 21% increase in sales to 2,440.

To keep the momentum going, Infiniti is going big on social media. “We see digital and social becoming our primary communications channels,” Bell said. “We want to use the data we have to deliver relevant and personalised messages. Our consumers are progressive and self-driven, and we need to speak to that as well. I think we made progress [in social] in 2017 and that will become even more of a focus in 2018.”