Nissan Motor Co. is planning to make a big splash at next week’s 2013 North American International Auto Show after a relatively low-key presence in the past few years. Nissan missed the show entirely in 2009 and has maintained a decidedly low profile at the major auto show in the past couple of years as well. However, the company plans to turn that trend around in a big way starting with next week’s trade show.
Nissan’s plan is to wow attendees in Detroit with a stunning trade show display that integrates a 150-foot-long orange halo swooping around the large multi-level flooring of the display and even includes a custom fragrance as part of the exhibition design. The trade show display also includes an interactive experience that tells Nissan’s brand story through HDTV’s connected to Xbox Kinect systems and different musical ambience for morning, afternoon and evening.
Nissan will be using its eye-catching exhibition design to draw attention to the new concept vehicle it will be showing off along with its new hatchback and a few other models. As is common at auto shows, these new car models will be under the spotlight and rotating on bright white turntables which will help to show off their design pizzazz.
Nissan reiterated that its absence (or relative invisibility) at recent trade shows has not been because they don’t see the shows as important. “We stepped away a few years ago,” Erich Marx, the brand’s director for interactive and social-media marketing, noted. “We’re back now. We want to be the must-see booth at the show. This is an acknowledgment that auto shows are an important way to make a statement about who we are,” he told Automotive News.
Notably, the exhibition design has been built from the ground up to make the trade show display modular. The version that will be on display next week in Detroit will be the full version, but the modular aspect of the design allows for it to be translated to slightly less ostentatious presentations at smaller shows.