Fishey

Nissan continues to misunderstand motorsports marketing.

Lets throw our money away they said.. It will be fine they said..

They should fire their motorsports marketing division and hire someone who knows what the hell they are doing. (My Resume is here)

Lets see what they have spent money on the last two years.

Delta Wing - Major failure for an engine company. It was about the design of the car and everyone knew Nissan had nothing to do with it.
Australian Super car V8 Altima - Really? This is nothing like a car you sell and even if I really want to own one I can't get it or anything like it from your product line.
Hydrogen/Electric Le-mans Leaf - Again, I can't buy it. Its a huge budget and Its not going for an overall victory. Your not going to sell more electrics because of it. Just look at the reaction from this board. Also, the vast majority of people who buy electrics don't watch motor racing.

To be effective with motorsports marketing you have to pander to the base and that means if your running a lower class build off of a car you can buy (best if a sports model). Then make it extremely competitive through both design and massaging the sanctioning body though sponsorship. If your going to run something that isn't based on the street car you have to do it at the highest level and I think 2014 would be a perfect year for Nissan to get involved in prototype racing with Grand-Am/ALMS merger. The problem is they are already way behind in terms of engine development but they could do it if they wanted. I mean hell they still have constructor rights in the series from infinity motors of years past so they could get involved and get out their engine technology much like Ford is doing with Roush/Yates with the Eco-Boost.