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Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Honda's advertising



We'd like to know, why it is so / That certain diesels must be slow / and thwack and thrum and pong / and hum and clatter-clact.

In 2004, diesel engines were, well, slow and made a lot of noise. That was the general consensus of the public who still saw them as a means for powering tractors and busses.

OK, maybe not that far, but my point still stands. The general public thought that diesel engines broke down, were noisy and slow. Fast-forward nine years and all that has changed of course, but as a nine year old I was captivated by the above lyrics and advert from Honda. 

Their advert was all about promoting the then-new i-CTDi engines in the UK; but it more much more than that; it started the trend for Honda adverts that stick in your mind. Put it this way, when I was planning this feature, I knew which adverts to choose straight away, without any kind of research.

‘Grr’, as it is named – it even has its own Wikipedia page for heavens’ sake – clearly had an impact. Honda report that their brand awareness doubled in the period after the advert was shown, and sales of the Accord - which has this new-fangled engine – increased by over 30,000 units in the year after the advert was shown, and Honda sales as a whole increased by 35%, which frankly, is incredible.

 It also had a game based around it on the internet – again, a new thing at that time – and an interactive website. This wasn’t made in 2013 remember, it was made in 2004, a full three years before I ventured online for the first time. Unsurprisingly for an advert that allows you to whistle and sing along to it, it won awards for the advert of the decade in 2009, and if you haven’t seen it before, it is here in full 140p goodness.

 However, that isn’t the only Honda advert that’s worth talking about. Next, there’s the ‘Impossible Dream’ ad from 2005, and the extended version from 2010, which again, won awards. It features, among other things, a Monkey bike, an old Formula One car, a superbike, a plane and a whole lot more besides, set to the song that bears the same name of the ad. All of this is fine, but the best bit about it is the bloke’s overalls – I want them. 

‘The Cog’, from 2003, is my personal favourite, however. It looks like it uses CGI but it doesn’t – it took over 600 takes to get right – and is amazing to behold. The way everything just works is a pleasure to watch, and I can’t commend it enough. While we have a lot of adverts that try not to tell us what they’re on about, this one’s beautifully simple in that respect: it shows how the Accord is put together. 

Finally, Honda’s latest advert - ‘Hands’ - is currently doing the rounds in the UK. While it applies a similar idea to the “Impossible Dream” advert, it is actually aimed at celebrating the company’s 65th birthday.  I could ramble on about how clever it is, but it’ll be easier for you to watch it instead; however I do have one complaint: the lack of the S2000 or any of the company’s Formula One cars. 

Those are four adverts, but there are a few more that I could talk about too, such as ‘The Choir’  and the one when skydivers jumped out of planes to form the word “Honda”in the sky, live on air.  Silly? Yes. Awfully expensive? Of course, but boy did it work: years on from these adverts I remember them, and I’m sure I’m not alone.

An Accord is never going to be considered to be a premium car, but even so, by being different with their adverts, Honda raised awareness of their brand, and therefore flogged a load of cars because people thought “you know what? I’ll buy an Accord diesel because of that funky song”.  Clever, eh? 

As ever, let me know what you think, either in the comments below or on Twitter. Which premium car makers have got advertising right, and which ones are useless at promoting their products?

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