Nissan steals Hyundai's star car-seller, Joel Ewanick

Nissan -- which is simultaneously trying juice sales of its current lineup and sell Americans on its upcoming Leaf all-electric ride -- has stolen Hyundai's marketing guru, Joel Ewanick.

He'll oversee all marketing for Nissan brand vehicles and starts Monday. Nissan predecessor Christian Meunier was shipped out to run Nissan Brazil (OK, that's not exactly being sent to run the Fargo office).

Ewanick brought us the Hyundai Assurance Plan -- lose your job, you can return the car -- which hit directly on what potential buyers most worried about in the recession and helped

Hyundai grow sales last year while the industry collapsed. Last summer, again thinking of the customer's wants, he offered buyers buck-49 gas for year.

Most of all, he aggressively kept trying to sell cars -- what a plan! -- when most everyone else went to the mattresses in bunker mode. When the other guys pulled back on big-event, high-profile advertising, Ewanick put Hyundai center-stage in the Super Bowl -- where the Assurance Plan rolled out -- and the Academy awards.

Result: Hyundai grew market share (from about 3% to 4.4% as of February, according to Autodata) and sales  through the industry depression in 2009 and it's still on a roll in 2010. As sales grew so did Ewanick's rep: He was named 2009 Market of the Year by trade journal Advertising Age. To be fair to the competition, it didn't hurt that Hyundai was giving him a steady stream of significantly improved and brand-new models.

"We'll definitely miss him. He made a lot of great contributions, but having said that we have good bench strength in our marketing department," Hyundai spokesman Chris Hosford told Automotive News as the company named Ewanick deputy Chris Perry interim head of marketing.