BMBP AIDES IN HALTING NISSAN “SCHOOL BUS RACE” TELEVISION COMMERCIAL

Over the weekend, Dan Bedore, Director of Communications for Nissan North America, Inc., had informed Mike Martin, Executive Director of the National Association of Pupil Transportation (NAPT), in a statement below that Nissan was pulling their “Miss The Bus” commercial due to receiving complaints regarding the commercial since the NAPT released their School Bus Safety Week video expressing concerns they had with the television commercials.

“Our Altima “Miss the Bus” commercial was intended to tell a story in an irreverent and entertaining way.  After hearing from The National Association for Pupil Transportation and many school transportation professionals, we realize that our attempt at humor has been perceived as a slight to those people who do an honorable and invaluable service to their communities.   School bus drivers are entrusted with our nation’s most precious resources, our children.  We thank them for their service and dedication to safety on the roads and apologize for the attempt at humor that resulted [in] an unintended offense.  We have removed the ad completely from all of our national and regional advertising rotations.”

Local law firm in Central New York, Brindisi, Murad, Brindisi & Pearlman initiated a social media campaign on Thursday, November 5th targeting Nissan’s promotion of unsafe driving habits, irresponsible parenting and neglect for school bus safety in a recent television commercial to sell more vehicles. The campaign used Twitter and Facebook to evoke a response from consumers in Upstate New York and gave them the ability to voice their opinion on the television commercial.

Eva Brindisi Pearlman also wrote a blog entitled “Shame On You Nissan” and started a digital petition (https://www.change.org/p/nissan-remove-nissan-school-bus-race-ad) that inundated Fred Diaz, Nissan Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing and Operations, Nissan USA with over 100 emails within a 24 hour period.

According to Martin, Nissan had no plans to end the campaign until pressure began to be put on them. In fact, Dan Bedore told Martin that they don’t really end a campaign as long as they have cars for sale, so the fact that they were willing to not only pull the ad but did it immediately is unprecedented.

Martin cited support NAPT received from its members and in particular Peter Mannella and the New York Association of Pupil Transportation, along with its partnership with Brindisi, Murad, Brindisi & Pearlman as a major factor in NAPT’s efforts to influence one of the world’s largest automakers.

The original blog post can be found here.

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