Monday, October 04, 2004

Hate Something Change Something Make Something Better

Honda UK has recently started screening an ad for its new generation of diesel engines.
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It's marvellous. The animators clearly consume a bucket of LSD with their Cornflakes before tripping to work each morning. Drawn in vivid psychedelic colours and populated by penguins, flamingos, bunny rabbits, seals and dolphins, with an acoustic backing track. We haven't seen or heard anything like this since 1969.
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At a stroke Honda has transformed British Commercial television into medium that plays their advert, punctuated by boring reality TV shows in between.
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As a piece of advertising it does the job. I now know that Honda is pushing a new series of quiet, low emission diesel engines. I also feel all warm n fuzzy about those engines. What Honda didn't do was target my weaknesses; my vanities, my insecurities, my fears, parcel me up into a cost-effective target demographic and hit that demographic with an ad that attempted to brainwash me into thinking that buying their cars would make me taller, blonder, more admired, have larger wedding tackle or join the upper classes.
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Thank you Honda and your ad agency. It's nice to know that there are some corporate people out that don't take us all for a bunch of retarded morons.
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Watch this ad now, here ...
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