Cubed

Hats off to Nissan for plunking down $20 million on an upcoming campaign for the new Nissan Cube, a vehicle not unlike the Honda Element and other dudemobiles marketed to the younger set. It's encouraging that they're willing to do a major push during this economic downturn and not only that but it's yet another example of how the digital world is influencing communications in the world of advertising. The Cube is being positioned as a "mobile device" and as Stuart Elliot points out in his NY Times advertising column today, several other words and phrases associated with the digital arena are being used to describe features of the car such as "search engine" (pretty clever actually), "storage capacity", "browse", "add friends"and "set preferences". It also reminds me of the Dentyne Make Face Time campaign last year which borrowed from the technology lexicon with the tag line "power down, log off, unplug ... make face time". I'm not sure how effective the Cube campaign will be but when it comes to connecting with the younger demographic, more and more marketers are utilizing digital speak to reach these consumers.