In order to promote NOTE, Nissan’s new fuel-efficient car, the company has created an ad that’s a parody of Heidi.
Characters from the Heidi parody
What is "fuel-efficiency"? In Nissan’s latest ad campaign, Heidi, the perpetually cheerful little girl from the Alps, asks this over and over again. Peter doesn’t seem to know either, nor does the giant in the mountains... Nissan has used the characters from the Japanese animation series Heidi to create a parody in which the company attempts to explain exactly what it means to be fuel-efficient while presenting their new car NOTE.
In addition to the TV advertisement, you can watch chapters of the parody on the car model’s web site. In the first chapter, Heidi walks around the Alps, incessantly greeting everyone she meets until Alm, the giant of the mountains appears before her. Heidi asks him the same question (What is fuel-efficiency?) and Alm, in his curious dialect, tries to explain what it’s all about, but Heidi manages to drive him mad by bombarding him with questions... so he ends up ignoring her. So, what is fuel-efficiency?
According to the company’s website fuel-efficiency isn’t just about ecology and respect for the environment, in fact, power-efficient products are more economical and help you save. For instance, in Japan, if you buy a fuel-efficient car you pay a lower tax rate.
After watching the videos, you’ll remember the word Teinenpi which means fuel-efficient in Japanese. If you like the parody, you can download some widgets , such as a clock, a screensaver, from the website for your computer. That way you’ll never forget what Teinenpi means.
This is the Nissan ad that parodies Heidi:
And here you can watch the pilot episode for the Heidi parody: