Q. What does a Burro have to do with a Honda Element?

I’m not so sure, but if you find out could you please tell me,

because I really want to know.

.........

Rubin Postaer & Associates: RPA

RPA is based in the US. The agency which started up in 1986 by Gerry Rubin and Larry Postaer, is apparently the largest independent agency on the West coast. You can explore their website @

http://www.rpa.com/

Back to the Burro...

Basically RPA have the Honda account out in the States. Because of this fact, and their obvious love of integrated, I have chosen to compare 3 Honda ad campaigns. The Honda Element (2006 & 2007), and the 2006 Honda Fit campaign. All three of these campaigns are a little peculiar. They could possibly be called fun, friendly and funky. But there is just something about the campaigns that makes them slightly pedestrian and as if they appeared from someone’s very first idea. My first thought is: Integrated? or something that is shiny and well polished on the outside, unfinished and not quite hitting the mark on the inside? Hmm, I wonder if a Honda car can be likened to an armadillo? ...

Honda Element: 2006

• The idea as it is written: What does a Burro have to do with a Honda Element? That’s just one of the questions being answered in our integrated campaign that likens traits of unusual animals with Honda’s popular outdoor vehicle.

• My guess at what the objective and strategy is:

Objective: To create an integrated and fun campaign, which enforces the idea of the Element being a car that is meant for natural environments.

• Strategy: By showing the Honda Element in situations that makes it seem at one with animals.

Honda Element 2007

• The idea as it stands: It was a year of self-promotion for Gil “the crab” who successfully saved his job with Honda and helped usher in a zooful of new friends for the Element.

• My interpretation of the objective and strategy:

• Objective: To further the awareness of the Honda Element, by creating more unusual stories about the car and its connections to animals.

• Strategy: By creating a whole new character called Gil the crab and creating more animal friends for the car.

http://www.rpa.com

When you compare the Element 2006 and 2007 campaigns, it is obvious that RPA have decided to keep the core idea for both. However, they have tried to develop the original campaign. I just don’t think they have pushed it far enough. A few new (very similar) TV commercials and print ads that extend the first campaign. An admiral try, but maybe a little too incomplete. The only thing that they have changed fully is the website...

The website. The good, the bad and the damn right ugly!

With the 2006 campaign they brought in the game. An interactive online game, where people control an Element around a digital island and interact with five different animals, each of whom shares some feature with the car: a crab, a platypus, a possum, a burro and a rabbit. Great. Or is it? An article written for Direct website, talks of the Honda Element game being an awarding winning idea in a world where ‘the way we consume media is changing, and those changes may spill over into the way advertisers think of and use search marketing. We’re spending more time online and according to a new study, we’re not always looking to do either work or task-oriented research.’ (http://directmag.com/disciplines/search-webmarketing/3-1-06-RPA-Honda/). And they are right. However, we should question if an interactive game which your kids will love is the way to sell cars. Especially cars aimed at ‘trendy guys’ (I found a forum discussing the matter - http://www.epinions.com/content_196663938692). Your son and his friends may get addicted, but will that convince you to buy the thing?

And then they tried to develop the website.

As if the original website wasn’t enough, along came Gil the crab in 2007. Gil had his own myspace page. Granted back in 2006 myspace was a lot more popular, but whether people would add a crab called Gil, who works for Honda, to their friends list is yet another debatable point. There was also memorabilia like T-shirts and mugs for those people who really did love this character. Honda Element ‘s main website now (2008) is clear, simple and easy to navigate. Someone who is looking to buy a nice safe Volvo, a car which fits its website http://www.volvocars.co.uk/models/XC90/ may appreciate the Honda site as it is in 2008, but otherwise it sorely lacks the personality that the rest of the campaign is trying to inhabit. This is where the whole campaign keeps falling down in my eyes. Like it is trying to reach a goal, but always failing at the last minute! If you are going to make an interactive website, make it interactive. For example, the Honda Fit website is starting to get somewhere. It seems to fit well with the rest of the campaign, and carries on the Fit car personality perfectly.

http://automobiles.honda.com/fit/society-of-fit.aspx

What is the Honda Element campaign missing that the Fit

isn’t? The Honda Fit campaign is fun. Slightly irritating with its over compensation of being the ‘small’ car on the market, but overall it just seems to ‘fit’ the target market and the type of car a bit better. For example, they have designed stickers with witty ways of printing them out. They have created jazz music events sponsored by the Fit. Also, there is a spoof reality TV show and computer wallpaper with the same funky illustrations. I think for a start, Honda Element could take a leaf out of the Fit campaign book.

What I would do to make the campaign feel complete

(if the budget allowed!)

Steal Mini’s RFID interactive billboard technology to allow Honda element drivers to have their own personalised messages flash up as they drive past.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/13/mini-usa-rolls-out-rfid-activated-billboards/

Semacode!

‘Semacode is revolutionizing the way of traditional print advertising by creating ways for consumers to interact with print media and engage in electronic transactions directly on

their mobile device.’ http://semacode.com/

Genius! – Honda Element could have added semacode to their print adds for their 2007 campaign to progress the 2006 one. People could scan the codes and be sent to the Honda Element website. Once on the website, they could get personalised coded messages. After all, advertising in the 21st Century is all about consumer involvement!

The Widget!

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_widget

I reckon RPA could have incorporated widgets into the Honda Element campaign without it seeming tediously try-hard!

Due to the fact that the Element says it is an outdoor vehicle, useful for surfers for example. They could produce a widget for people’s desktop that keeps them up to date with things like surf reports, or music events.

How they should have made the website the body of the

campaign...All these technologies would only really work if the website was spot on. If RPA insisted on keeping Gil the crab, then I think they should make a lot more of it. They could place the character as a vector icon on Facebook, come up with some ambient ideas for it. Anything more than a few t-shirts really. Gil the crab could recommend the best outdoor places to visit. There could be a competition for the best phone video uploaded by customers (places they’ve driven their car). They could customise their own car like Skoda: http://www.skoda.co.uk/ . Improving Skoda’s idea would require the ability to fictionally customise your car. For instance, famous passengers and destinations. Basically the possibilities are endless...

And the car the heart...

It is easy for agencies and clients to get carried away with an idea (like talking ‘cute’ animals), but how about the car? Somewhere along the Honda Element campaign line, the actual features of the car have gone missing. Comparing a car to a Burro isn’t really going to provide you with the basis to choose a car for safety or interior reasons. Why wasn’t the Honda Element at the top of the America’s best selling car list http://www.thetorquereport.com/2007/08/what_are_the_top_20_best_selli.html , and the Ford F series was? The Ford cars are proper 4-wheel-drives. Not something in-between, and they have been sold as such: http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/f150/ Basically you know where you stand with it. Maybe the Element should decide what it is before it starts trying to be clever!

To conclude, I think it is quite possible for RPA to achieve both a fun and involving campaign for the Honda Element. They just need to keep bringing the potential buyer back to what makes the car good. If that is the fact you have space to store a surfboard and not look like a 4- wheel driver, then so be it. They need to keep their target market in mind and not aim every campaign at kids. For the Honda Fit it worked. I guess the animals are fun, but they don’t necessarily involve potential buyers.

So what does a Honda Element have to do with a Burro? Well...Apparently they both carry a heavy load.