Showcase Your Auto Enthusiast Prowess Win a NISMO

Nissan is appealing to their enthusiast target customer in its latest contest. The NISMO 370Z Sports Car Enthusiast Challenge & Sweepstakes does this in a fun and unique way by having contestants take a quiz for an opportunity to get more entries to win a 2010 Nissan 370Z NISMO sports car.

The contest goes through June 28, 2010 and to date has 44,388 contestants having played the game since early April. Participants get entries to win by correctly answer questions of a per day 3 question quiz, by simply returning to the site and entering their email, and can also gain more entries by sharing the site with up to 3 of their friends for up to 3 additional entries.

The share with your friends to get more entries to win is the first time I've seen an automaker incentivise contest sharing by giving a reason for people to share: more entries to win. I've never really understood sharing a contest site with others because doesn't more participants equal a worse chance to win? Here Nissan battles that issue by giving a bonus entries to the person doing the share.

Quiz questions are very effective here as the questions build more knowledge about the Nissan 370Z NISMO. It's a great way to increase interest in the vehicle to an enthusiast culture who cares about the detailed specifications of the sports car.

The site also links out to the Nissan site where contestants can choose from a variety of exit paths specific to where they are in their own shopping or interest path.

You Can Create Your Own Honda GrooveJust Don't Expect to Share It

“In September of 2008 we carved grooves into a quarter mile stretch of asphalt on the outskirts of Lancaster, CA. The goal was to create an experience that embodied the connection Civic drivers feel with the road.”

Honda’s creative musical road idea was an interesting, fun way to express the connection a car has with its road and what its drivers experience as road, car and driver connect in one simultaneous beautiful experience. To bring that experience to life, Honda cut grooves into a road in southern California and create a YouTube channel featuring the original TV commercial and several documentary short films explaining how it was done.


A new online experience on Honda’s Civic shopping website extends the idea in a new way. Website users can now create their own virtual musical road where they can plot different notes on a road and playback the version they made on the “Grooves Game” website.

The experience is an interesting way to bring new life to the original idea and bring an user generated, interactive experience to make the idea more personal. Of course, to make your own song, that’s worth listening to, it helps to have some musical experience. My ability to create a musical road sounded as muddled as the thuds I hear on my daily “musical” expression on the pothole-ridden roads of Michigan each morning.

Supposing you can actually create a new tune that’s worth listening to it is a shame the Honda Grooves Game doesn’t let one share their creation. The only share that can be done is an email sharing form that sends the website link for friends to create their own song.

In an age where most sites share through social media properties, it seems odd that Honda didn’t allow for an easy way to make that happen or a simple way to share a person’s own musical road. This would have made the experience more interesting. Perhaps budget or timing prevented such expression.

Overall, the idea is great way to extend a real-world idea to a digital idea. Unfortunately, without some stronger social sharing or allowing people to express their own musical roads, the site loses its power to be more compelling.