Ford is interesting, but Honda genuinely engaging

Being sick with flu and off work yesterday meant that I had time to catch up on various new ads - the two ones that really caught my attention were the Honda "Problem Playground" and Ford "Orchestra". They crystallized something in my mind that I wanted to blog about - then I come into work , checked my RSS and found out that Scamp had already posted about it. But I hope that I can add something new to the conversation.

I absolutely love the new Honda ad:

The music,  the characters, the insight - just everything. It's a genuinely engaging piece of content, that is bang on brand, beautifully articulates the insight and fun.

This is the "making of the ad"

Then I saw the  new Ford ad:

And it left me a little cold.  It interested me, but didn't engage me. It felt like it could be any car and actually was only brought together for me in the final frame with the end-line "Beautifully Arranged". As the smart guys who blog at Spinning Around rightly say this has generated a huge PR for the campaign, noticeably for Alesha, she of  Strictly Come Dancing fame,  Dixon branded spin-off.

"The special edition Alesha Dixon video showcases a selection on the instrument including - Clutch Guitar, Door Harp, Fender Bass, Transmission Case Cello and Hatchback Kick Drum. In total 21 parts were taken from a new Ford Focus and turned into musical instrument that sound and look completely unique.

One of the instruments, the ‘Door Harp’ is made from a front door, a window, and a spring and uses harp strings. The ‘Clutch Guitar’ is made from body sheet metal, power brake booster and parts of the actual clutch.

It has real guitar tuning keys and real guitar strings with the strap made from a seat belt. The video shoot took place in one of the car manufacturer’s wind tunnels at its Technical Centre in Dunton, Essex in January. Alesha performs a classical remix of her track ‘For You I Will’ accompanied by twelve of the car part instruments."

So while, I doff my hat (is that an expression???) to the Ford team as they are trying something new. The question that stays in my mind is WHY? Why is Alesha singing with a backing band playing bits of cars- what does this say about Ford, what does this say about Alesha?

Why?

I guess that it is new way of generating old-school PR. Interesting, but to me not really on-brand and not hugely interesting. Sorry.

Comments

[James Gordon-MacIntosh]

Not entirely sure that smart guys is right ... but thank you nevertheless.

Have to say that I agree. As a piece of pure PR, it'the Ford work has generated a load of chatter - as this coversation proves.

As a piece of message delivery, it probably doesn't hit the mark in the way that the Honda stuff does.

But when it comes to it, they are doing different things in my book.

For Ford, it's all about talkability - and the PR has certainly amplified the ad by getting people to talk about the damn thing.

They are also doing different things from an audience perspective - Honda hitting a more cerebral note for those who care about all things green, Ford doing an associative, lifestyle job for a product (the Focus) to make it relevant and interesting to younger drivers.

There are times when PR over-does the "fame for the sake of it" argument.

There are also times when ditching a slavish approach to the message and being a brand that DOES interesting, innovative things (at least in the eyes of a prospective audience) achieves the aim in the end.

There comes an interesting point when the act of being seen to do something interesting (an ad-funded pop promo) conveys the message they are trying to get across - "we are a brand that is prepared to be interesting".

Dunno, maybe that's taking it too far ...

[Simon Gregory]

I think I'd probably agree overall. I'm always waiting to like the Ford ad, but never quite get their whilst the Honda playfullness really appeals.

Honda and Ford may be dabbling with PR and message delivery but it's VW that's currently winning my applause. For their new website.

Brand awareness and PR are, of course, a must, but check out www.volkswagen.co.uk. VW have blatantly made a solid decision to start from scratch and create a brand new site with one key question - "What would make it easy for consumers to find out about VW cars?". From requesting a test-drive to choosing a model and configuring it, it's really, well, easy!

It looks pretty slick as well.

[Faris]

It is pretty.

Space Invader also likes rubik's cubes

http://www.space-invaders.com/rubikubism.html