The New York-based agency Della Femina Jeary & Partners put the $1 million campaign together for the New York & Long Island Honda Dealers Association, which anchors marketing activities for 15 Honda dealerships in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, Queens and Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

"JibJab will gain huge attention during President's Day when it is difficult to crack through the morass of car commercials," said James Tenny, Della Femina president and chief operating officer.

Della Femina has arranged for paid-placement of the spots--which feature the original short's visuals with original lyrics--on YouTube, along with a number of sites, including AutoTrader, NY Post, Autobytel, AOL Autos, and NY Daily News, among others. Each online banner includes a "send to a friend" option to promote the spot's viral spread.

This marks the first time that JibJab has licensed its material to be repurposed in a campaign. "We approached them about the rights to one of their popular animated vignettes," explained agency founder and CEO Jerry Della Femina.

But while JibJab Media's attention-grabbing shorts have never been used so directly to promote a particular brand, the company is no stranger to Madison Avenue.

Last October, JibJab struck a deal with Verizon Wireless to produce comic shorts for online and mobile streaming on Verizon's V CAST service. (The clips--short films featuring sketch comedians--were developed by famed "Blues Brothers" director John Landis.) And last April, JibJab launched JokeBox, an online community for comics, as well as a vehicle for spreading viral marketing shorts for brands like Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light.

JibJab, founded by the brothers Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, came to Web fame in 2004 with "This Land," a short animated video parodying the presidential election. The brothers later created a sequel to "This Land," which debuted on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

Founded in 1990 by Jerry Della Femina, other current Della Femina clients include Ad Council, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Maxim Living, and Standard & Poor's, among others.

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