Honda chases a dream to launch Bold New Civic in new campaign via Leo Burnett, Melbourne
Bringing to life Honda’s ‘Power of Dreams’, Leo Burnett Melbourne has created a campaign for the new Honda Civic that shows that anything is possible when you’re bold enough to chase your dreams.
The campaign features a launch film directed by Goodoil’s Nathan Price. It tells the story of a determined reporter who has ambitions beyond the small-time dog show story she is covering. When opportunity strikes in the form of a meteor hurtling towards the earth, she chases after it in the Bold New Honda Civic to realise her dream. Backed by the iconic song ‘Dreamer’, the action-packed spot features everything from a bumbling news crew, to a fallen forest and an unexpected crater. All visual effects were completed by Alt.vfx.
The launch film is part of an integrated campaign that includes cinema, outdoor, online, radio, social and dealer communications.
Says Honda Australia GM of Customer and Communications, Scott McGregor: “The Bold New Honda Civic is ready to shake up the small car segment. ‘Chase It’ is the third execution in Honda’s strategy to engage and entertain our customers, and follows on from highly successful campaigns for HR-V and CR-V. The Honda R&D team chased their dream to create the boldest Honda Civic ever, and we think there’s a strong parallel between this and the dreams that our customers chase every day.”
Adds Leo Burnett Melbourne chief creative officer, Jason Williams: “The ‘Power of Dreams’ is behind everything at Honda. This campaign aims to inspire current Honda drivers, and Honda drivers of the future.”
Agency: Leo Burnett Melbourne
CCO: Jason Williams
Senior Creatives: Alex Metson / Blair Kimber / Joe Hill / Garret Fitzgerald
Senior Agency Broadcast Producer: Cinnamon Darvall
Group Account Director: Chris Ivanov
Senior Account Director: Jaime Morgan
Integrated Account Director: Nick Bennett
Account Executive: Alex Cusworth
Director of Integrated Strategy: Ilona Janashvili
Strategy Planner: Emily Gould
Senior Digital Strategist: James Duthie
Senior Digital Producer: Charles Crang
Associate Digital Creative Director: Tim Shelley
Digital Designer: Matthew Caminiti
Technical Director: Luke Torney
Senior Back-end Developer: Ken Chen
Front-end Developer: Rami Yahya
Print Producer: John Trifonopoulos
Social Media Team: Chris Steele and Josh Popow
Production Company: Goodoil Films
Director: Nathan Price
Producer: Andrew McLean
Executive Producer: Juliet Bishop
DOP: Ginny Loane
Production Designer: Guy Treadgold
Editor: Jack Hutchings – The Butchery
VFX & Supervisor: Colin Renshaw – ALT VFX
Sound Engineer: Sam Hopgood – SoundLounge
Soundtrack: Roger Hodgson (Dreamer)
Media: Zenith Optimedia
Client: Honda Australia
General Manager, Customer & Communications: Scott McGregor
Brand Communications Manager: Ben Familton
Brand Communications Specialist: Melissa Altarelli
Brand Communications Specialist: Sarah Tolliday
25 Comments
So they stole an idea from Bruce Almighty..
It’s weird, very weird..
Great single minded story telling.
Clients cruising this blog take note.
No sales pitch, no forcing features down your throat – just showing how your product fits into peoples lives in an entertaining way.
Well done Leos on yet another ripper Honda spot!
So epic! Love it. Why can’t we have more fun doing spots like this in ad land.
Well done Leos on yet another ripper Honda spot!
Man that is epic! Good stuff guys. Shitload better than any other car spot on telly.
High production. Low thinking
It reminds me of an old arcade game, weird and entertaining.
9/10
Might have been better for an SUV, 4WD? Pretty lame too.
Looks similar to this one from Hyundai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL9DBEeLJDw
enjoyed this. nice one.
What I just watched. WTF was going on there?
It’s fun and well made. ‘Looks’ epic and great that it has a concept but the concept is a little ‘dumb’. Good but not as good as the previous Honda spots. But keep doing it Leo’s. It still stands out in a sea of vague sameness at the moment.
We chased a dream? Putting it up as worst line of the year.
Like a Ford ad with FX.
Bloated production can never be a substitute for an idea. How lucky for all concerned that they persuaded a gullible client to cough up a generous budget for a piece of work based on the thinnest of brand properties -‘”dreams”. So points for campaign continuity at least, if you’re a brand property anorak and you spotted that. But if the intention was to showcase an exciting new design for the Civic – and deconstructing this fireworks display to its skeleton, that seemed to be the brief, the occasional glimpses of the car were very effectively concealed beneath the look-at-me FX and ridiculous plot.
Ahh old cd guy you’ve bobbed up once again full of rhetoric, angst and jealousy. Sir, your negativity is a drain on the industry and your constant slamming of work on this blog is becoming tiresome and fittingly ‘old’. Please, please, please – I am begging you – find another outlet, or go out and make some bloody ads instead of canning them all the time.
I love this.
Very entertaining but I wonder if Honda realise their agency is more concerned with winning awards than selling their cars
‘The power of dreams’ is a sensational positioning and line, however I don’t think this or arguably any Honda spots have managed to effectively bring it to life in the way it was originally intended. Maybe Wieden’s Impossible Dream spot, but not this, sorry.
See the original, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL9DBEeLJDw
OCDG’s opinions and analysis are merely that. Analysis and opinions, offered without malice. This is a space for opinions, after all. That is its purpose. Do you have any analysis to offer, or merely snarling, poisonous negativity and personal criticism? Are you defending the work? If so, on what basis? Surely you can string a few words of insight together to enrich the debate. Or are you an art director?
I’m confused by this ad. How annoying, because i just watched it, in an excited kind of way because i wasn’t confused or annoyed by last year’s, more lucid, lucid dreams ad. Am i meant to have an opinion about this ad? Because, even though i am writing about it, to advertising people, I don’t work in advertising. And therefore I don’t. Have an opinion that is. I’m a barrister (that’s not someone who makes coffee btw). In my opinion though, only in my opinion, it’s annoying and confusing in ways that i can’t (or won’t) be interested enough to share . How annoying and confusing. I’ve never really wanted to own a Honda, even though, many years ago, Ayrton Senna did. Well, he drove one, really fast. Is that the power of dreams thing? Is that what it’s about? Ayrton Senna driving a Honda really fast and dying in it? I don’t think i’ll watch the ad again. Unless I have to, on Masterchef or something, tomorrow night. Yes, tomorrow night will be good. While i figure out how to make a really good creme brûlée or something. Its confusing how the French have infiltrated this blog with their annoying accents. Brûlée. I’m opposed to that.
Love to hear from our barrister friend, someone who is trained to have analytical skills. Please sir, stick your head over the parapet once more to tell us what it is about this ad that so annoys you. Your well-considered critique is all the more valuable because it comes from outside the incestuous gene-pool of the advertising ‘profession’.
You may have noticed that the self-described ‘Old CD Guy’ above managed to separate the issues and give voice to what he sees as the flaws in this commercial. Please now give us some of your valuable $500 an hour time to help us understand what so irritates you about this work, an irritation that I happen to share. Not just, ‘too many explosions’ or ‘washed-out colour-grade’, but how this ad fails in more fundamental message or tactical ways.
I’m sure you can do a lot better that your charmingly naive if bizarre rant about the Ayrton Senna factor. If you don’t return with a decent critique,,there’s a fair chance you will be dismissed as a junior creative in camouflage pants, or worse – a mere barista.
Is there a point to this, other than the agency trying to gain internal packs on the back. Rubbish ad and will result in zero sales… Oh yeah that’s the point agency. Get a clue…