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Honda CRV Breaks New Ad Campaign


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What do you CRaVe?
Ad Campaign for the All-New Honda CR-V Celebrates Consumers Cravings

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Santa Monica, Calif., Sept. 28, 2006 – A fully integrated national advertising campaign for the all-new Honda CR-V begins Sept. 28. The strategy developed by Honda’s long-standing agency of record, RPA, focuses on the CR-V’s all-new styling, inside and out.

The crave-themed campaign celebrates the essence of consumer desires. Popular cravings like chocolate, ice cream and popcorn are juxtaposed with the all-new CR-V. The advertising targets young, active consumers who may be single or just starting their families.

“CR-V's really grown up with head turning styling and premium options like the voice activated navigation system. This campaign does a great job of showing off the vehicle and a few other things that our buyers love,” said Tom Peyton, senior manager, national advertising at American Honda Motor Co.

Television will include a unique combination of computer-generated, animated. :30 and :15 spots, specifically three :30 spots to create impact and six :15 posts for an expanded presence. Multiple Oscar®-winner Kevin Spacey returns this year as the voice of Honda, lending a sophisticated, yet approachable tone to the work. One spot features a newly remixed version of Elvis Presley’s, “Burning Love.” Targeting 25- to 49-year-olds, spots will air on top-rated programs, including the premieres of Lost and Smallville. Print debuts in USA Today and will be followed by an Us Weekly spectacular in the 10/6 issue.

“Since the campaign is all about cravings, we figured we couldn’t do any better than Elvis and ‘Burning Love,’” said RPA Associate Creative Director Jim Real. “The new remix takes an already great song and gives it a bit of fresh energy.”

“Because we were asking the CR-V to do things a real SUV simply can’t do—wiggle like Elvis, fall like a snowflake—the best way to capture the idea of a craving was by taking a bit of creative license with the visuals. The CGI created by the team at FAD helped us achieve that, and the result is a cool, never-seen-before campaign that’s sure to stand out on all the various media we’ve chosen,” said RPA Associate Creative Director Rich Pass.

Outdoor ads will appear in 20 key markets, and mall boards will be featured in 86 malls in 10 markets. The :30 spot featuring Elvis will run on movie-theater screens across the nation in October and November.

Crave-worthy tactics supporting the campaign:

CRAVE Marketing Site (crave.honda.com): Site features user-generated content. Visitors can submit things that they crave in the form of a photo with a description. Crave submitters can also add tags to their submissions (such as “chocolate”).

Search Marketing: Leveraging the tagging concept, search marketing drives traffic from crave-related searches back to the CR-V CRAVE site. A vehicle-specific search campaign also targets 2007 CR-V searchers.

Online Advertising: Portal home-page roadblocks will take place on MSN, Yahoo! and AOL in early October. Additional roadblocks of prominent entertainment Web sites (such as EW.com, E! Online, Movies.com, People, Fandango and Yahoo! Entertainment) will run in October. Extending the entertainment focus, a custom sponsorship has been developed with Yahoo!’s new Red Carpet Web site.

CRAVE Macy’s: In San Francisco, CR-Vs were displayed at the Macy’s Passport Cocktail Party and Gala in mid-September. On following days, a CR-V activation set-up was positioned in front of the Union Square Macy’s. Staged like a photo shoot set, the set-up allowed those who passed by to pose with the CR-V and Macy’s shopping bags and receive an instant photo in a CRAVE-branded photo frame. In mid-November through the end of December, similar Macy’s CR-V events will take place in Chicago and Atlanta.