In Canada, Honda Civics Come in Giant Boxes of Fake Cereal

By Gabriel Beltrone

In a salute to the flimsy plastic cars that come shrink-wrapped in breakfast cereal, the Vancouver arm of digital agency Dare assembled this gigantic box of knockoff Cheerios, then put a real Honda Civic in front of it. The conceit is a bit fantastical. It's supposed to make driving seem more fun—ostensibly like playing with a toy car—and thus help British Columbia Honda peddle the Civic model. But it's mostly a clever spectacle for rubberneckers, joining a growing genre of over-the-top auto-related ad constructions. Kind of like the insanely tall ramp Hot Wheels is building at the Indy 500 to sell toys—only more cutesy and less terrifyingly badass. In the U.S., of course, Civic campaigns are monstrous, too—though a bit hairier. Via Creative Criminals.

Source;
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/canada-honda-civics-come-giant-boxes-fake-cereal-131936

HONDA SHINES BRIGHT IN NEW TV AD TO SUPPORT AFFORDABLE HYBRID CAR

Honda will debut its latest TV ad ‘Let it Shine' in April to support the launch of its new hybrid car, the Insight. The advert is part of an integrated marketing campaign to work towards the company's aim of environmental leadership across the EMEAR* region by 2015.

The 60, 30, 20 and 15-second TV spots marks the global launch of the all-new Insight - the most affordable hybrid on the market - which aims to make cleaner car technology accessible to a wider audience. The new Insight goes on sale at the start of April in most of Europe.

The advert opens on what appears to be the world's largest LED screen displaying an animated sequence of simple dot matrix graphic stories that depict the notion of ‘good'. The animations show hugs and kisses, frowns turned into smiles, and general goodwill - all aiming to convey people's inherent wish to be good. As the animation plays it is slowly revealed to the viewer that it is actually being created entirely by the headlights of hundreds of Honda Insight cars. The spectacle is set to a bespoke recorded version of ‘This Little Light of Mine' created by Berend Dubbe.

‘Let it Shine' has been created by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam for use across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia. The European debut of ‘Let it Shine' takes place on March 28 in Belgium.

The campaign extends Honda's strategy of continuing to be at the forefront in environmental technologies and communications. This new approach underpins a communications plan which will run alongside the expansion of Honda's hybrid range with a coupe based on the CR-Z concept and a Jazz hybrid set to join the new Insight and existing Civic Hybrid in the next two years.

Chris Brown, Head of Marketing for Honda Motor Europe comments: "We would like to become the most admired company in the world, and to do this we need to have the most admired brand and communications across our region, EMEAR. This is a continuation of our journey."

This latest campaign is truly integrated; with print, outdoor and digital in addition to TV. The theme ‘Everyone Wants to Be Good' is incorporated throughout, as well as the iconic ‘Honda Eco' flower - a visual cue to the ‘Eco Assist' system within the Insight which encourages and rewards efficient driving.

In the end, although the team discovered that the idea was logistically feasible, they were concerned about the carbon footprint that a shoot of that magnitude would leave. After doing the work to see what was possible W+K and Honda made a conscious decision to look at a more environmentally friendly alternative. The result was a fusion of modelling software for animation, a small number of Insight vehicles for scale and a few hundred Insight headlights. The vehicles and headlights were precisely spaced and wired together while a specially created computer program created the two separate halves of the animations. These animation halves were subsequently married together in post-production.

This approach allowed the team to greatly reduce the carbon footprint of the shoot. To further limit carbon output they relied on vehicles already located in South Africa, grouped shipments of props and lights as much as possible, and mandated group transportation of personnel to and from shoot. For further good measure, the shoot's carbon output that could not be prevented was entirely offset through carbon credits purchased through the Carbon-Neutral Company's Unity Portfolio.

‘Let it Shine' was directed by Erik van Wyk and creative directed by Jeff Kling, John Norman and Sue Anderson. It debuts across Europe in April and will be shown in 14 countries initially.
First air date is Belgium on 28th March.

Here is a link to the actual Video Trailer;
http://www.hondanews.eu/en/news/index.pmode/modul,detail,0,1111-DEFAULT,21,text,1/index.pmode

Funny Honda FIT Ad; Runs from Mecha Mosquitos

Found this Ad by Honda where a Honda Fit outruns a bunch of 'mecha mosquitos' in the shape of old gass guzzling american cars. It's a pretty good one, follow the link below to see the commercial in action.

Source;
http://jalopnik.com/5056537/honda-fit-runs-for-life-from-gas+guzzling-merican-mecha-mosquitoes

Honda Civic 'Musical Road'

This strip of road in Lancaster, California is one of only a handful of roads in the world that will "sing" as you drive over it. The music comes from the noise made by tires passing over a series of carefully cut groves in the road's surface. Now local residents want it all to be paved over, just because not everyone drives a Honda Civic at exactly the right speed.

Made by Honda as part of an upcoming advertising campaign, the road's incredibly out-of-tune rendition of "The William Tell Overture" (you might know it as the theme from The Lone Ranger) attracted tourists but annoyed locals to no end. Honda states that the road was tuned specifically to the tires and wheelbase of a Civic, so that may explain why it sounds so terrible in this video. We're thinking that the neighbors living about a half mile away and can't get to sleep at night from the racket really don't care to hear it at all.

Source (with video);
http://jalopnik.com/5053214/hondas-musical-road-to-be-paved-over

News Source;
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/09/the-road-as-roc.html

Plane Used in 'Difficult Worth Doing' Honda Ad Crashes and Claims 2 and Injures 4 on Next Flight

A skydiving aircraft which crashed in Spain with the loss of two lives had been used the previous evening for a live TV ad on the UK's Channel 4.

The British arm of car manufacturer Honda confirmed that the plane was one of those used in Thursday night's advertisement for its brand.
Skydivers spelt out the company's name in a series of formations.
The crash on Friday, which nine skydivers managed to escape, was unconnected to its ad, Honda said.
"No-one on the plane was in any way connected to Honda or with the company's advertising shoot," according to its statement.
"Honda extends its sincerest condolences to the families of the two people killed."

The pilot and another skydiver were killed when the plane, a Swiss-made Pilatus PC-6, came down after losing a wing near Lillo airfield in the province of Toledo, south of Madrid.

It plummeted to earth shortly before 1400 GMT on Friday, bursting into flames upon impact.
The Honda live advert had been screened just after 1900 GMT the previous evening.
The UK Foreign Office has confirmed that the dead skydiver was a Brazilian-born Briton, German Junior Alvares de Silva, from London.
The pilot was Spanish as were four skydivers who were injured, two of them seriously, Spanish media said.
The other skydivers involved were believed to include several non-Spaniards.
It was not immediately known why the plane's wing had come off.

Wow, scary to think about what could have happened.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7430441.stm

3 Funny Honda Ads

This ad may be in bad taste but I couldn't resist.