Honda lets it shine

Honda Motors Europe and Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam launch the new Honda Insight Hybrid campaign. The integrated campaign marks the first work for Honda from W+K Amsterdam and is the first in a series of products being advertised under Honda’s new environmental brand platform. ‘Everyone Wants to Be Good’ is set to break across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia throughout April.

The campaign will launch the Honda Insight Hybrid, which represents the first step in establishing a strong and accessible messaging platform for future environmental product initiatives for Honda. Tapping into a core Honda philosophy that ‘human nature is fundamentally good’, the Insight features the Honda Eco Assist coaching system which helps people drive more efficiently while the Insight campaign touts the line ‘Everyone Wants to Be Good.’

Chris Brown, Head of Marketing for Honda Motor Europe’ ‘‘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.”

Executive Creative Director Jeff Kling continues, “People want to be good and, given the chance, will choose to do good. Honda has given more people the chance to be good by creating an affordable hybrid.”

The ‘Let It Shine’ :60 TV spot, directed by Erik van Wyk and produced by Bouffant, will begin with what appears to be the world’s largest LED screen displaying an animated sequence of simple iconographic stories that depict ‘good’. The animations will show hugs and kisses, frowns turned into smiles, and general good will, which is all meant 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 hundreds of Insight vehicle headlights being operated by their drivers. The entire spectacle is set to a bespoke recorded version of ‘This Little Light of Mine’ created by Berend Dubbe.

The physical production of the spot was an extreme exercise in mathematical theory. “We first set out to see if it could be done with all real cars,” says Executive Creative Director John Norman. “It was incredible to see the amount of research that went into what it would take to create an actual vehicle grid of that scale. The camera distance, types of lenses needed, and the actual height of the camera were all variables that affected each other and just about everything else. It was an awe inspiring process.”

View ‘Let it Shine’.

View the making of ‘Let it Shine’.