Honda’s biggest UK car launch campaign breaks on national TV this
Friday as the Japanese car manufacturer unveils its latest Accord model
to consumers.
One 40-second and two 20-second ads by CDP will spearhead the pounds 18
million campaign, which follows more than two months of direct marketing
activity. The TV spots will be supported by press and poster ads and
will run for the next two months.
The campaign, which positions the Accord as the car that’s got
everything, uses an eight-foot high mirror maze, specially constructed
in Death Valley, California, as its main visual motif. In the 40-second
ad, the Accord weaves its way through the maze as the voiceover
declares: ’Choosing a new car can be so confusing, it’s hard to know
which way to turn ... until now.’
At this point, the Accord begins to break out of the maze, whose sides
tumble spectacularly as the car completes its escape to the chorus of We
Gotta Get Out Of This Place. The song was re-recorded by Space
especially for the ad and will be released as a single later this
month.
In the two shorter films and the print ads, the mirrors are used to
highlight specific features of the Accord. The car’s reflected image is
variously half its actual size (to demonstrate its fuel consumption),
non-existent (to show how little noise it makes), green (to signify its
environmental credentials) and a rally car (to indicate its safety
specifications).
A standalone Accord website also launches at the end of the week.
The Accord, which accounts for a fifth of Honda’s UK sales, is expected
to increase that figure to around 60 per cent within the next few
years.
Honda’s head of marketing, Martin Sanders, said the campaign had been
planned for more than a year, adding: ’This is the most important launch
we’ll do for a long, long time.’
The campaign was created by Adrian Kemsley, Loz Simpson, Paul Sharp and
Paul Turner at CDP. The television commercial was directed by Nick Lewin
through Cowboy Films.
