The car maker is turning to kotozukuri - storytelling - to take its branding up a gear and grab more of the upmarket and green vehicle sectors. “Nissan has always been a company of ‘monozukuri’ – Japanese for the science of making things,” says Andy Palmer, executive vice-president of the Yokohama-based car manufacturer.“The company has always been good at this, but awful at ‘kotozukuri’, the art of storytelling,” he adds. “If you think about Japanese companies, their marketing is usually based on the clever Japanese [people]. They are pretty lousy overall when it comes to the art of marketing.”As the member of Nissan’s nine-person executive committee responsible for overseeing marketing globally, it is Palmer’s job to make the company better at kotozukuri, bringing the brand to life through stories. The most important change Nissan has made in its efforts to achieve this came last year, when the corporate structure was reorganised to bring marketing into closer contact with the product planning division, which Palmer also heads.“Anything that is, broadly speaking, creative, basically falls under my remit,” he says. “Marketing used to be sales and marketing, as a combined function, while hidden away there was the PR group.”Marketing and communications have now been brought together, headed by corporate vice-president Simon Sproule, who reports to Palmer on the executive committee. Sproule’s division has been given the freedom to find and tell compelling stories about Nissan.One result of this is that the company has established its own media centre in Japan, where it films and broadcasts online automotive news programmes. Nissan hired the BBC’s Tokyo bureau chief Roland Buerk to run the division, and has its own staff of journalists and photographers covering news stories in the sector.Nissan’s marketing and communications also now take much more inspiration from learning about vehicle technology trends…

Brands not normally associated with catwalks and celebrity models are forming partnerships with London Fashion Week and British design talent to engage with a younger target audience. British fashion has been a major global export for decades and numerous brands connected to the industry have long used sponsorship to hang off its coat-tails. But in the run up to this year’s London Fashion Week (LFW) starting next Friday (September 14), a wider spread of sponsors from a more diverse range of sectors are associating themselves with the £21bn business.These include confectionery brand Ferrero, which is using its Kinder Bueno chocolate bar to sponsor London Fashion Weekend for the first time this year (see Q&A, below).Activity includes a partnership with the consumer-facing Weekend - rather than the trade-only LFW - and on-pack promotions. Marketing manager Emma Colquhoun explains: “The fashion partnership is a longer term equity building partnership, so we’re looking to drive perceptions of Bueno being a stylish brand for this audience - a relevant brand that consumers feel is a brand for them.”It might seem unusual for a chocolate brand to be involved with a fashion show, but it will work because it is focused on “feeling good about a light indulgence” in a similar way to buying clothes might be, she claims. Ferrero wants to use its sponsorship to reach women aged between 25 and 34. “Obviously we have some baggage on Bueno being called Kinder - people perceive us as maybe a brand for kids, so for us it’s important that we very clearly position ourselves as a brand that’s relevant for women,” Colquhoun adds.“Our research shows that fashion and lifestyle are very motivating and relevant to our target audience, and we felt there was a very clear association between the idea of fashion as a light…

The horsemeat scandal, criticisms of fizzy drinks and a report slamming FMCG supply chains have rocked the food industry. Trust is at an all-time low, so how can the sector regain consumers’ favour? The food industry is suffering its worst crisis since the BSE scandal in 1996. In the past few weeks, retailers, manufacturers and restaurant brands have found horsemeat in their beef products, the fizzy drinks industry has been rapped by medical groups for helping to cause obesity, and Oxfam has criticised the ethics of FMCG companies’ supply chains in its Behind the Brands report.Although the food and drink sector is generally one of the most trusted - coming third after technology brands and the automotive industry in this year’s Edelman’s Trust Barometer - it will now become an uphill struggle to retain this trust and it is marketers who will be called on to help protect a brand’s reputation. Nearly 40 per cent of shoppers are less trustful of their main supermarket in the light of the ongoing horsemeat scandal, according to Canadean Custom Solutions, which spoke to 2,000 consumers last month. Added to this, more than half are sceptical about the quality of their supermarket’s meat. However, 88 per cent are more likely to blame suppliers for the contaminated meat.The management of supply chains has been highlighted but whether marketers can have an effect on this operational side of the business is questionable.A former Tesco marketer says the department should have a clear understanding of the supply chain. “A retail marketer’s role is to get the product on the shelf and support the sale, including the packing and positioning of the product in-store, the point of sale material, the shelf-edge label and making sure the product is at the right price.“Understanding the supply chain along with the…