User:Donnie Park/Dream Garage (advertisement)

Dream Garage was an American television advertisement launched in 1996 intending to promote Nissan's heritage, when at the time, they faced a decline in sales that began in the 1970s and subsequently financial problems.

Dale Ishimoto as honorary president Yutaka Katayama

The commercial was criticized for

Nissan management was forced to shift focus on it's product in future commercials

Sequence
play baseball in the field

goes into the barn

retries the ball

follows the dog

falls through the hidden trapdoor where he discovers a secret garage containing a collection of Nissan

greeted by Mr. K (Dale Ishimoto) who encourages him to view his collections, highlighting his personal 240Z ; the 1960 Datsun 1200 (pickup truck making reference to the Dogs Loves Trucks commercial); Patrol, like one owned by Roy Rogers and a NPT-90 that (claimed to erroneously have) won three consecutive world championships) before seeing the young boy out of the garage where he made a.

Background
Katayama, also known as "Mr. K", the president of Nissan USA who was credited for establishing the Datsun brand to American consumers, was replaced by Hiroshi Majima in 1975, returned to Japan as Chairman of the Board and then retired in 1977 that triggered Nissan's ascent into decline. According to Tom O'Connor, who worked in Nissan's Competition Department, employees felt Katayama's departure had a negative impact on the company that was built up by Katayama was going to fall apart.

In 1981, Nissan made the announcement that they are to begin preparations to phase out the Datsun name, originally used to save face to Nissan should the brand fail and for over 20 years had developed a loyal following to American consumers, to improve global consistency with other markets. By the mid-1980s, executives took the decision to market the two brands together.

Many consumers felt the company would never regain it's ground lost by discarding a brand embraced by them as it left them feeling confused as the brand was suffering from an identity crisis. The Nissan 300ZX was the first car to bear the Nissan badge in 1983.

Autoweek reported the decline of the Japanese sports car market in it's September 11 1995 issue in which declining sales, made increasingly expensive by the high dollar to yen exchange rate, meant that the 4th generation Z-Car, the Z32 300ZX, was unable to keep up with the success of it's smaller competitors, namely the (Mazda) Miata, despite being perceived by the general public as a "chick's car" regardless of it's success in club racing. The 300ZX, regardless of the early success in IMSA Camel GT and it's Toys campaign despite failing to improve sales, was therefore discontinued in it's home market bringing to an end, a 26-year history, despite protests from members of the National Z Club and a number of dealers where sales were still going strong. Nissan's competitors followed suit shortly afterwards with the Toyota Supra and Mazda RX-7 being discontinued for similar reasons, much to the regret by consumers although they, mechanics and dealers were perplexed by it's complicated electronics.

As sports cars were considered irrelevant to the then current market for young families, executives focused their attention towards pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles as it saw increasing sales of thus marketeers focused their campaign toward them.

Nissan had spent the last decade with worsening sales and began to lose direction after they killed off their other performance models, Sentra SE-R, then the 240SX and finally the last coupe in their lineup (at the time), the 200SX. Thus they had no choice but to have nothing to offer other than a Maxima, originally promoted as a "four-door sports car", Altima, Sentra as well as a bizarre looking minivan and an aging truck.

development
Nissan needed a campaign to improve it's image to get the American public interested again in the brand, additionally to make them the forefront of creativity and ingenuity. Jack Collins, previously designer at the La Jolla, California based Nissan Design International (NDI), also credited for the successes of the Altima, was brought back from after a year in the Nissan Europe studio in Brussels to become the head of product strategy, revitalizing the brand. He brought in a number of marketing managers to work with him and commissioned Chiat/Day to work with them for a campaign that paid tribute to Katayama, despite being still unknown to a majority of the general public. Amongst the few proposals they came up with was the Dream Garage campaign that celebrated what he endorsed, life.

With the approval of senior management, they embarked on a $200 million campaign that promoted the brand's heritage with Yutaka Katayama as a frontman in the hope of encouraging sales back to dealerships

.

reception
Although screened in commercial breaks during sports coverages; despite attention received, interests proved short lived as the commercial failed to generate interests in the products.

Without a flagship model for buyers to crave for, Nissan continued with slumping sales with staff morale at an all time low with many of it's employees, many key members leaving, some ending up with Toyota.

Nissan in Japan sought a partner to help them out of it's financial problems

Bob Thomas was replaced in his position as president of Nissan USA by Minoru Nakamura who shifted it's product emphasis to sedans to appeal to young families

Senior management forced a shift toward the focus on it's products in future commercials as opposed on image or brand as the crisis-hit Nissan brand became irrelevant to the buying public by then

Nissan began it's number of reforms that eventually led to the appointment of Carlos Ghosn

began a step back into reform when the proposed Z concept car was introduced in New York International Auto Show April 1999 and the Xterra launched to rave reviews, a first step toward reform.

Collins retired in 2006 after refusing to relocate with the company to Tennessee

Cars

 * 1937 Datsun Type 15
 * 1960 Datsun 1200 pickup
 * 1962 Datsun Patrol
 * 1967 Datsun 2000 Roadster
 * Mr. K's 1972 Datsun 240Z
 * 1970 Datsun 510
 * 1986 Nissan 300 ZX
 * 1990 Nissan NPT-90
 * 1988 Nissan King Cab
 * Nissan Pathfinder
 * Nissan 300ZX
 * 1994 Nissan 300ZX GTS