Nissan

In 2012, Performance Communications was involved in one of its most inspiring motorsport projects, courtesy of Nissan Europe.

Nissan became a technical partner in the DeltaWing project, which aimed to complete the famous Le Mans 24 Hours race using half the fuel and half the tyres of a regular prototype racing car.

As well as a full-scale media relations assault that began three months before Le Mans and amassed a huge amount of national and international coverage, the Performance team also planned and executed a global launch for the Nissan DeltaWing race car. The event, held in London and put together in a little over a week and a half, welcomes around 100 media guests from across the globe, with press flying in from central Europe, the Nordics, Japan and USA.

At the Le Mans 24 Hours itself, the team helped set up a world-first attempt to curate fan content to stitch together the DeltaWing’s first-ever racing lap. Meanwhile, the pre-event work to promote the car and its noble environmental aims made this diminutive, dart-shaped car a true fan favourite among the 250,000-strong crowd at La Sarthe, with social media noise about it outstripping even the traditional big players, like Audi and Toyota.

When the Nissan DeltaWing was unceremoniously punted out of the race after 6h15m, a carefully-constructed crisis comms plan swung into action from the Nissan media hub in the paddock, which was manned throughout by Performance personnel.

And, even as the DeltaWing’s Le Mans journey came to an end, we even managed to produce one of the most enduring pieces of content from the event, as our team captured our driver’s heart-breaking attempts to fix the car at the side of the track before, finally, admitting defeat.