“We loved the idea of using the celebrities to draw people in to this pronunciation game, and then using a range of creators with different-sized followings to create a groundswell of content conversation on TikTok,” Allyson Witherspoon, chief marketing officer at Nissan U.S., wrote in an email.
TikTok isn’t a new part of Nissan’s overarching social media strategy. Nissan began prioritizing the platform after incorporating it into the company’s “Thrill Driver” Super Bowl campaign last February, Witherspoon said. Over the past year, Nissan has experimented with its TikTok content and sought to determine the best ways to engage with consumers on the platform, recently tapping into trends like ASMR, she said.
And, even before breaking into TikTok, the company has regularly partnered with influencers at all levels, from big-name celebrities such as Larson to Heisman athletes, Brenikov noted. Nissan has even previously worked with TikTok creators who own Nissan vehicles to share user-generated content for the company to post on its own TikTok page, he said.
But the #HowDoYouSayAriya initiative represents a “newer piece” of Nissan’s TikTok strategy in working with creators, Brenikov added, with the company planning to continue tapping smaller influencers to create content that will resonate with TikTok users.
The company will continue to extend its promotion of the Ariya beyond TikTok in the coming weeks. For example, the company recently collaborated with YouTuber LoFi Girl on a four-hour video ad modeled after the YouTuber’s soothing music live streams, which has received 1.5 million views in two weeks.
