Consumer message: The Nissan X-Trail is able to park automatically for you on any angle and condition in 4x4 Mode.

3D architecture and angle study

Mind twisting exercise: not only the car had to be shot perfectly mirrored, but also the light and the talents!

Urban design: Disability friendly ascending sidewalk with flat steps, integrated LED lights in the wall, unique design of the bollards and different stone materials for the contour of the parking area.

Close-up: Reflected image in the mirror and details.

Lake Montriond in the French Alps

Nick Meek on the set

Making-of: On the rooftop terrasse in Paris

Making-of: Our set designers building the ramp

Lake Montriond in the French Alps

The team :) At lake Montriond in the French Alps

Nissan X-Trail — PRINT — CAMPAIGN

A D V E N T U R E C A L L I N G !

PARIS – TBWA\G1 and Nissan Europe have launched a pan-European campaign, “Adventure Calling,” for the new Nissan X-Trail, marking the start of yet another exciting chapter in the Nissan crossover success story.

“Adventure calling” is this universal inner voice that is challenging and daring individuals to push their own limits and curiosity. This state of mind is explored in an integrated campaign, including TV, digital, experiential, prints, OOH, CRM, PR and retail in over 20 European countries as of July 2014. The campaign is based on the consumer insight that we all have an inner voice calling us to adventure, but in our busy lives, we struggle to answer that call. Nissan X-Trail is the perfect tool to unlock this and experience your own adventure.

I was assigned to create and develop three print ideas under the campaign line “Adventure Calling”:

– One visual (outdoor and print) emphasises what is the adventurous reflection of an X-Trail in an urban environment.

– The two other prints dramatise two key product features: Nissan Intelligence Parking Assist in 4×4 Mode & the Seven Seat configuration.

Art direction: To create a stunning, sophisticated visual that would express both adventure and premiumness in an urban environment, I dedicated a lot of time to choose the right locations, research premium materials for the floor, a modern glass building architecture with interior stairway, the urban background, the talents and their outfits, as well as the design of the urban environment. In fact on the ‘4×4 Intelligent Parking‘ with the ascending sidewalk for example I looked into a disability friendly sidewalk with flat steps and integrated LED lights in the wall. I also wanted to have an unique design for the bollards and different stone materials for the contour of the parking area.

I’ve chosen the photographer Nick Meek to shoot the car, talents and far backgrounds as his exceptional style seemed to me perfect for this visual and worked with the highly talented team of Recom Farmhouse from London to built in the architecture in CG.

Making-of: Creating these visuals were a real challenge. On our first day we shot the car on a beautiful new rooftop studio in Paris and the rain was coming down in sheets until late in the day when we were graced with a ray of sun. Nonetheless Nick had to use artificial lighting to re-create a natural sunlit scene and post-production ended up with a real puzzle with lots of pieces to be combined together. Luckily it was sunny the next day and the set designers had built a ramp for the second image (4×4 Intelligent Parking). The buildings in the background were both shot in Paris and from Nick’s extra material in his photo-library to help us build the cityscape.

We then took the car out to the French Alps by a mountain lake to shoot everything as a reverse image of what was shot in Paris. The shoot turned out to be a bit of a mind twisting exercise, it required a little mathematics to figure the correct angle of reflection and some pretty ingenious location finding to match up the angle of the sun, because not only the car had to be mirrored but also the light and the talents which we had to shoot for the third image (‘Seven Seater’).

Check out as well this nice Making-of page by Recom HERE

Credits:

Client: Nissan
Agency: TBWA\G1 Paris
Art Director: Carina Wachsmann
Creative Director: Fabio Abram
Photographer: Nick Meek
Production: Toolbox
CGI-Director: Christoph Bolten
CGI-Artist: Kristian Turner and Richard Jenkinson
Post Artist: Kate Brown