As most of you in the UK must have heard by now (or not, I'm interested to get your feedback), Honda and its live TV advert on Channel 4 have been making the headlines over the past couple of days.
At 8:10pm last night, Channel 4 viewers were given a break from "normal" commercials with a live Honda advert featuring 19 skydivers, trying (successfully) to form the letters H O N D A while free falling...
Mark Sweney, new media correspondant at MegiaGuardian.co.uk wrote an interesting article of this live advert : "PR stunt or innovative advertising ?"
- Innovative ? Yes in a way as you do not see live advert every day although this is not the first time* a live advert has been shown on tv...
- PR stunt ? Yes, clearly, this live Honda advert has been everywhere in the media, starting from the free London papers to the Guardian for example and of course, all the blogs and online media...
- A success ? Certainly, as mentioned by Mark Sweney, the overall cost of the advert is low (£500k) vs. the industry average...
Oh, and I love one of the comment I read online about the advert: "It's the only time I've recorded a programme to watch the adverts"...
* I remember a -not so good- live advert for Hollywood chewing-gum 2Fresh in September 2007, where a comedian would talk about the product during the French "Star Academy" program advertising break)
I think you should read this... These skydivers had an accident the day after the commercial...
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-35658592@7-37,0.html
Posted by: wiLLoØ | May 31, 2008 at 11:56 AM
@wiLLoØ : whaouh... I feel sorry for those guys ! It's weird, the story hasn't leaked in the British papers yet.
Posted by: Sandrine | May 31, 2008 at 12:48 PM
Finally, it wasn't a such good PR stunt. We will remember this campaign as a deadly one. Too bad. Next time use some bicycles
Posted by: Che Guerilla | June 10, 2008 at 01:36 AM