On Friday, Nissan Motor's (NASDAQ:NSANY) Chief Executive Officer, Carlos Ghosn, announced he would give up his oversight of the company's operations in North America to focus more on Renault and Nissan. The Japanese car maker is in a tough stretch of late, and warned that it would a lower profit for the year. The company's shares have been trading in a narrow range for years, and the company is looking for a way to reinvigorate its brand. Enter the losing keys promotion.

To promote its new push button ignition system for the 2007 Nissan Altima sedan, the company will be scattering about 60,000 sets of keys in bars, theaters, sports arenas, and parks in several key markets (sorry, couldn't help it). The key tags will have promotional tags like, "If found, please do not return because the Altima has Intelligent Key with push-button ignition, and I no longer need these." If you find a key and log on to the company's website, you can receive a $15 gas card or magazine subscription.

With a total cost for the campaign of less than $100 thousand, I think this is a brilliant marketing campaign. As Spike TV found out rather unfortunately, scattering stuff all over the place is a great way to generate publicity. The fact the key promotion directly ties into the Nissan's push-button ignition system will generate free buzz for this feature. I'm betting that this ad campaign will generate a lot more value, dollar for dollar, than buying air-time for yet another car commercial.