Man survives 7 Days in a Sentra

No, this isn't an inspiring story about a man who survived being trapped in his Nissan Sentra for a week by eating forgotten french fries that fell beneath his front seat. Rather, it's part of Nissan's clever marketing campaign for the new Sentra, which goes a fair bit beyond the traditional TV and print ads. In order to attract attention to its newest small car offering, Nissan stuffed a Sentra with aspiring comedian Mark Horowitz and told him his new address for the next seven days would be wherever he could find a parking spot. There were rules by which the young Horowitz, who appears to be the love child of Dane Cook and Napolean Dynamite, would have to abide if he were to get paid at the end of the week, which include the following...

• Must live 7 straight days out of the Sentra. He is free to come and go from the Sentra.
• Must not return to his apartment at any point during the 7 days.
• Must assume his normal day-to-day responsibilities, including work and scheduled meetings.
• Must personally prepare at least 4 meals within the immediate vicinity of the Sentra.
• Must go on at least one date. Hopefully more.
• Must not let anyone else drive his car during the 7 days.
• Must sleep in a different location each night. Once the location is chosen he must not move.
• Must not set foot outside of the car for any reason from 12am – 5am.
• Must host at least one "social function" in the Sentra.
• Must maintain the highest standards of personal hygiene.

Aside from producing a quirky marketing campaign, we're pretty sure FOX could turn this into a sweet reality show. The rules gaurantee that Horowitz won't make it through the week easy, and indeed he doesn't. Fortunately, he blogged about his travails on this site, as well as produced a series of videos so we could watch him fumble through the week. Nissan let us have at the newest video that isn't officially released yet, in which we discover that meter maids don't care about Nissan's goofy marketing schemes when they're writing parking tickets. Yeah, we've tried the whole, "I'm part of a marketing campaign for a major automaker, I have to park in the fire zone" excuse before too, it doesn't work.

We also discovered that Nissan has already entered the world of Second Life to market the new Sentra, whereas we reported yesterday that Pontiac was planning to give away free land in the game starting sometime in November. We like Nissan's presence in the virtual world of Second Life more because it set up a virtual dealership and is giving away Sentras free in the game! The Second Life presence ties in with the Horowitz thing as well, since you can watch all of the comedian's web videos inside Second Life while choosing the color for your free Sentra (Check out Nissan's press release after the jump for details on nabbing on your Second Life Sentra).

[Source: Nissan]

PRESS RELEASE:

In addition to the "7 Days in a Sentra" Blog, Nissan has also bought an online "island" in SecondLife. Game players can go to Nissan's island to visit a virtual dealership, get a digital version of the Sentra, and learn about the car's features. In order to select a free Nissan Sentra from the "vending machine" of choices, you must IM Marc's sidekick "Toast Alicious" for the password. You can then pick your favorite color as well as choose from two rim options. Once you have a car, you are encouraged to defeat gravity in the LOOP D LOOP, play with mini Sentra RC cars, and more all while watching the Marc Horowitz "webisodes" from '7 Days in a Sentra', ultimately tying it all together.