Temple of VTEC Rumors and News - New & unprecedented Honda Accord marketing campaign in UK

HONDA LAUNCHES STYLISH NEW ACCORD BY TAKING CAR TO PIECES

Honda hits Britain's TV screens for a full two minutes at the start of next weekend's (6 April) Brazilian Grand Prix with a totally new style of engineering ad to launch the new Accord.

The first commercial break after the start of the race will be completely taken over by the ad which is the part of a �6 million marketing campaign to launch the Accord saloon and Tourer range.

Called "Cog", the advert uses 85 parts of the new Accord car to showcase the superb engineering quality in a way viewers will find engaging and fun. Various components of the car are used to construct a beautifully complex domino effect - a giant game of cog nudging cog, walking windscreen wipers and rotating panes of glass.

The endline, delivered by Garrison Keiler, is simply "Isn't it nice when things just work?".

The execution continues Honda's recent philosophy of producing car ads which don't look like car ads. This approach - driven by ad agency Wieden & Kennedy - has been shown to cut through the "wallpaper" of traditional car advertising as well as generate highly favourable responses among audiences.

The ad is the latest in a series which have run over the last 12 months since "OK Factory", the execution which outlined Honda's philosophy and attitude. The campaign has been built on Honda's unique but little-known heritage, striving to inject joy, passion and imagination back into the car category and bringing meaning and life to Honda's slogan 'The Power of Dreams'.

Matt Coombe, responsible for Honda UK's advertising, explained the approach: "Our advertising aims to show the public what Honda is all about - our passion for engineering, our ability to see things differently?in an intriguing and humorous way. The advert celebrates a very Honda view of engineering, while at the same time using a beautifully precise style appropriate to the new Accord."

The new Honda Accord Saloon is available from ?16,495. An estate version, the Accord Tourer, will be available from May.

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'Cog' Additional Facts

The sequence was filmed in a special studio in Paris. The shoot took a week to complete. The director was Antoine Bardou-Jacquet (through Partisan). The ad was art directed and written by Ben Walker and Matt Gooden. Other people who worked on the project included engineers, sculptors and artists.

And here're the links to the press release, and to the video in flash or Quicktime versions:

http://www.hondauk-media.co.uk/hondauk/archive_rel/32963hon.htm
http://www.honda.co.uk/newcars/accord300k.html
http://194.29.64.17/thecog/movie.html