Porsche Calls 911 on Nissan Ad

Posted by Abe Sauer on July 19, 2010 01:30 PM

The Nurburgring trials have turned into quite the annual rivalry between Nissan and Porsche. Nissan has shocked the auto world by putting up Porsche-besting lap times. This led Porsche to accuse the Nissan brand of falsifying its lap times. Obviously, the Nissan brand has a great deal to gain by bragging about beating the iconic Porsche. And maybe Nissan took its bragging too far in a recent ad because Zee Germans are threatening to sue. But is Porsche just drawing unwanted attention to Nissan's victory?

As any auto brand would, Nissan is moving to leverage its win over Porsche at the Nurburgring run with aggressive marketing. In addition to pun-heavy ads (“The Germans Came Off Wurst”), Nissan is running ads depicting one of their models with Sopwith Camel-style "enemies downed" marks on its side (above). The imagery uses the Porsche logo (in addition to BMW's and Audi's) and Porsche is not happy about this.

A Porsche public relations representative explained, "The problem arose with them using our Porsche crests. They are our property and we do not give permission to any company to use our crests without our permission. This applies to any company." She added that Porsche has "no issue" with Nissan's overall campaign.

Riiiiiiiiiight. Nissan has reportedly since replaced the logo with the word "Porsche."

Of course all brands must do due diligence to protect their brand assets from misuse, and no brand expert would counsel otherwise. But, unfortunately, with all of the prior history between the brands, Porsche's griping comes across as bitter. If the brand really wants to respond to Nissan, it should do it on the track.

(Image via egmCarTech)

More about: Automotive, Nissan, Porsche

Robert (RJ) Hagel says:

I don't know what Porshe is so worried about. They still have a better product and Nissan is still a budget car with a high horsepower force fed engine.

July 20, 2010 11:38 AM #

JW says:

First Crocs and now this.

What is Porsche so worried about?

July 20, 2010 12:43 PM #

Muraculous says:

Nissan clearly sees the German sport luxury market as their target but using war-related imagery is getting very close to reminding the general public of the Mitsubishi Zero, P51 Mustang, P40 Warhawk and the Spitfire - and we all know how that turned out.

The fact that Nissan is testing at Nurburgring and is getting a little too cocky for the their hosts' liking obviously means that Porsche and company will be looking to make them pay for their lack of manners. Maybe when Nissan and co. have held the title for a couple of decades, they can brag.

July 20, 2010 01:07 PM #

A Sauer says:

Ha! Great observation. I kind of thought about mentioning this myself but I just cannot imagine even a tiny percentage of the target for these ads making those connections. Funny though.

July 20, 2010 10:09 PM #

Larry says:

The comment on Nissan being a budget car... Nissan's GT-R is a very high performance machine that outperformed Porsche, including the Turbo. The auto writers have proclaimed the high performance, at a cost less than a stock Porsche. It's smart to take on Porsche in the key differentiator for Porsche, 'performance.' Also, Nissan's Infinity has similarly gotten high marks with the M45 preferred over BMW 5-series by 8 out of 10 auto writers (as I recall) in 2008.

July 20, 2010 03:36 PM #

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