Honda Extends 'Dreams' Corporate Effort

by Karl Greenberg, Jun 29, 2009, 3:25 PM

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Honda is extending its "Dream the Impossible" corporate campaign that began in January. The new installment -- the fourth -- is a short documentary featuring people like Deepak Chopra and Clive Barker speaking about what dreams and nightmares they have.

The "Dreams vs. Nightmares" film, a seven-minute documentary, launched Monday at http://dreams.honda.com. Via Honda's longtime AOR RPA, it targets 25- to-49-year-old adults "who are comfortable with technology, who value authenticity, and who are drawn to brands they can relate to, connect with, or admire," per the company.

The film has visionaries talking about their dreams, good and bad, and how dreams help them find answers to problems, reflect waking reality, and define one's identity. "Nightmares are dreams that have gone sour," says Chopra. "It speaks to the place behind our heads -- that is really us."

Barbara Ponce, manager of corporate advertising for Honda, says the automaker is using primarily online media to generate awareness about the campaign via a two-minute trailer, and 30- and 15-second spots. She says trailers will run within banner ads on sites like CBS.com, TV.com, Hulu and ABC.com. Ponce says the trailers are also running in cinema, "which lends itself to two-minute trailers."

Honda will also promote the films via full-page takeovers and pre-roll placements on technology, news and entertainment Web sites like ESPN360, Wired and Sony's Crackle and Xbox Live.

"Primarily, we have been promoting the films online, but it's with rich media, so it's not your static banner ad," she says. "We actually did something new with this film, by releasing it via Twitter on Friday. So, we have had about a thousand views."

Ponce says the effort aligns with Honda's longstanding "Dreams" corporate theme. "It's about defining the power of dreams." She says that while the primary medium for the campaign is the Web, "we are exploring other media going forward, but nothing's been decided at this point."

"The great thing about this series is that it inspires a lot of additional ideas that are coming from consumers and internally from our team. We are looking to the new iteration in the fall and we want to look at ways to expand the reach of that, so we are looking at other ideas as well. But we haven't made definitive plans. I -- and Honda -- see this as a long-term corporate campaign. What will change are the topics, but the spirit of the campaign will remain the same."

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