Nissan's lippy Micra taking a hush-hush approach to NZ market

By ALASTAIR SLOANE, motoring editor

Nissan New Zealand will launch its new Micra small car with a different advertising slant to the "blue lips" campaign used last year in Britain.

The ads featured giant blue lips talking "Micra-speak"', a language invented to describe the car.

Micra-speak words include "Spafe" (spontaneous and safe); "Simpology" (simple and technology); "Smig" (small and big); "Aggrendly" (aggressive and friendly); "Thractical" (thrilling and practical); "Luxurable" (luxurious and affordable); Compacious (compact and spacious).

Nissan's British advertising agency fused existing words to create the new vocabulary.

In Micra-speak, the use of typical car words like modern and retro became "modtro."

Nissan asked film director David Lynch (Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive) to direct the television commercial.

Said Lynch: "I like the Micra, particularly the headlamps. They are like jewels. And I like the concept of 'Do you speak Micra?' I like modern and retro put together to make modtro - that's a very good concept."

The British ad showed the Micra accompanied by a flow of Micra words spoken by the giant blue lips moving through a city environment lit by the French director of photography, Jean-Yves Escoffier (The Crow, City of Angels, Good Will Hunting).

Said Lynch: "I think it was [surrealist artist Rene] Magritte who put lips in the sky. This is a bit of the feel of those big beautiful lips."

The television ad was a big hit. The third-generation Micra was launched in Britain in January last year. In March, Nissan increased production at its Sunderland plant by 25 per cent to meet demand. To date, it has sold around 50,000 in Britain and 180,000 in Europe.

The advertising campaign in New Zealand will be a variation of the latest British ads. There are no blue lips, no Micra-speak. Beyond that Nissan won't say.

The Micra represents the product-led revival that Nissan is enjoying worldwide, thanks in part to major shareholder Renault's influence.

The Micra is built on the same chassis as the new Renault Clio. It has a strong, distinctive design with a snazzy interior and comes with features normally found on upper-segment models, such as "intelligent key" and "friendly lighting".

Intelligent key allows the car to be unlocked and started when the key fob and its built-in wireless transmitter are within 80cm of the car, for example in a handbag or pocket.

Friendly lighting leaves the lights on for a few seconds as a security measure.

Nissan will launch two Micras on to the market here, both built in Japan. The entry-level five-speed manual will cost less than $20,000. The four-speed automatic is expected to be priced around $23,000.

Both cars will be well-equipped, especially the automatic. It gets automatic wipers, automatic air-conditioning and six airbags to go with some upmarket brake technology. Ride is first class; so is headroom.

The new Micra jumped straight to the top of the supermini class in a security test in Britain last year.

Its locking system prevented testers gaining access to the car within the two-minute timeframe, and its immobiliser stopped the vehicle from being driven away within a five-minute timeframe.

This is the first time Nissan has officially brought the Micra nameplate to New Zealand.

There are a few used March (the Japanese domestic name) imports around, but in the late 1990s Nissan reckoned the price of the new Micra landed here would be prohibitive.

The growth of the small-car market in New Zealand helped to change Nissan's mind about bringing it in.

Whether it will bring in the next Micra model will depend on the new car's sales success.

The coupe/cabriolet version will go on sale in Europe next year. Nissan's first European-built coupe/cabriolet is being developed with Karmann, the German coachbuilder.

The new car will have a retractable hardtop and will be a redesigned version of the Micra C+C concept unveiled at the Paris motor show in 2002.

Another Micra that started life as a concept is the Micra R ... "which is what you'll be screaming when this mid-engined, mad little car rockets you to 100km/h in less than five seconds and on to a 245km/h top speed," says Nissan in Britain.

The Micra R is based on the standard Micra and was unveiled at Geneva last year. But its British designer, Christopher Reitz, didn't want it to end up in a concept-car graveyard.

So he asked the then head of Nissan in Britain, Brian Carolin, to breathe life into it.

Carolin got together with Ray Mallock, who ran Nissan's British Touring Car Championship campaign in the late 1990s, and the R was born as a roadgoing rocket.

"From nose to tail the R is unlike any Nissan Micra ever produced," says Carolin.

"You won't find an engine under its bonnet, just a radiator and a fuel tank. And the Micra's rear sliding seat has been binned in favour of a 265bhp (198kW) fully race-prepared engine. It's still got the Intelligent Key system, though."