Funnily enough, in the past hour I was sitting down with Darren Cox! The reason for the Juke was to combine NISMO motorsport relevance with Nissan road cars. Bit of a no-brainer considering the British-built Juke wasn't modified by NISMO, but rather RML for a few wealthy clients. It was then paraded around the Middle East, where it beat the established supercar names in a number of drag races and was used as a pace car for some races. The quota built by RML was sold to wealthy enthusiasts who already owned one of each of the competition, and the exposure NISMO got and sales of Jukes off the back of it made it worth while.
Basically, motorsport marketing is a real black art, but this particular exercise worked. According to NISMO, anyway.