Few days ago, Nissan Lebanon launched its latest campaign entitled “Suggest An Arrest”. On March 2nd 2013, the “Nissan Police” squad raided Uruguay street popular for its bars and nightlife activity to bust suspected drunk drivers. They randomly spotted suspects in bars, made them go through funny drinking tests (Dancing Gangnam style following a straight line on the floor for instance), then take them for a ride in a Nissan car if they are tested positive. During the ride, Nissan officers briefed drunk people about the car’s safety features and offered them a “Hangover Kit”.

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This campaign, by Memac Ogilvy Beirut, is a quite interesting idea (that reminds us of the Nokia Lebanon App Patrol) to promote Nissan’s safety standards and it does not stop here: You can suggest an arrest for a friend and make him go through the whole process.You do so through the official Facebook page of Rymco, the automotive dealer of Nissan in Lebanon, and specify a date (not a time) and a location for the arrest.

Unfortunately, you can’t suggest an arrest and make it happen in real-time which makes it less authentic: How are you supposed to know that you will have a drunk friend driving on a specific date? Of course, doing this in real-time requires much bigger budgets and resources in order to have “fake” officers constantly ready for an arrest at any (reasonable) time of the night. And even though this may turn more into friends pranking each other it will always benefit Nissan’s safety campaign by creating a buzz.

Weirdly enough, while the campaign shows a high level of interaction by the community, Rymco’s Facebook Page doesn’t allow posts by users. It seems like they aren’t getting the social media concept completely right.