• by Liz Tascio , October 26, 2006

The Honda Element uses a pinch of humor to engage friends and fans

Liz Tascio reports

Of all the arguments against marketing on MySpace, the strongest may be that ads aren't welcome there. Devotees of the online community think it's lame when agencies create branded areas; they feel deceived when a clever page gets outed as advertising. It seems that their virtual sandbox is now crowded with marketers trying to rack up "friends" and eyeballs.

Enter the crab.

The creation of Honda's agency of record, RPA, Gil the Crab is a surprise MySpace hit and an unofficial spokesman for the Honda Element. Gil is quite at home in the online sandbox, blogging away and responding to notes from "friends." His MySpace page has logged more than 1 million visits and more than 90,000 friends.

It's the engagement with those friends that's proving to be most persuasive.

"We've had over 5,000 people that took the time to leave poems, take pictures of crabs that they've seen, offer marriage proposals," says Mike Margolin, vice president and associate media director of target marketing at RPA. "[That's] a lot of interaction, and it's been entirely un-incentivized."

Gil updates readers on his various dramas - getting fired from the Element campaign, or being arrested for wrongful pinching. Until mid-September, he touted a petition at SavetheCrab.com to get Honda to take him back; he received more than 25,000 signees. When Gil announced his rehiring, users posted congratulations. One offered to set him up with a lady crab.

Other impressive MySpace campaigns have rewarded users in tangible ways - "Snakes on a Plane" friends could download movie trailers and win tickets to the film's premiere, and "Clerks II" friends could win a credit in the movie. But Gil's page gives users something even more resonant: a storyline.

"If you think about Lonelygirl15, why was that so engaging? It's because she was unfolding a story online; people wanted to know how it was going to end," says Peter Kim, senior analyst with Forrester Research. "More and more with these social media, that's what's hooking people in. It's a much deeper experience than traditional marketing." 

Element of Style

When RPA was reviewing customer research, it realized that consumers didn't understand the Element, which debuted four years ago as a vehicle designed for an active lifestyle. Neither a truck nor an SUV, but definitely more than just a car, the Element was puzzling.

"We heard a really common message," Margolin says. "People were viewing the Element as a different animal. Those words were actually used quite a bit."

So RPA created a crew of animal buddies to illustrate the Element's defining features. Viral videos featured the Element in conversation with a platypus, a burro, a possum, and others. They directed users to a virtual island to play a game with the Element and its friends. Consumers spent an average of 15 minutes on the site.

The videos' popularity encouraged Honda to extend the online campaign into a multimedia effort including TV, print, and outdoor advertising. A set of billboards directed drivers to tune their radios to frequencies to hear conversations between the Element and his friends. All the components drove users to ElementandFriends.com.

This first phase of the effort raised brand awareness and produced a higher rate of purchase intent, as hoped, Howell says. It also bestowed unexpected stardom on the crab.

Crabby Celeb

The crab first appeared in an Element and Friends video. While the other critters chat with the Element about features such as traction (the bunny) or carrying capacity (the burro), the crab has one train of thought: "I pinch."

"Everybody loves the crab," says Jenny Howell, manager of interactive marketing for American Honda Motor Co. "When we showed our spots to the dealers, everyone was running around going, 'I pinch! I pinch!"

The persistent crustacean pinched consumers' funny bones, too. Of the 700,000 views of the "Element and Friends" spots on YouTube, the "I pinch" video snagged the most.

The crab even crept into the offline world. Said one YouTube user, "I pinch everyone in the car every time I see an Element. Twice if it's orange."

RPA had planned to drop the crab and his friends for a new set of animals in the 2007 campaign. Realizing it had a hit, the agency created a bridge campaign during the summer called "Save the Crab." It gave the crab a name, Gil, and put out the word that he'd been canned by Honda.

So Gil squatted on the island, directing visitors to his Web site. About 30 percent of visitors came via search. RPA used Google AdWords, the Yahoo search marketing network, and content-placed ads to drive traffic.

J. Barbush, associate creative director for RPA Interactive, blogged as Gil on MySpace and corresponded with fans. Gil's MySpace page carried the campaign through the summer, directing users to ElementandFriends. Consumers could read the memo explaining his firing at TheSmokingGun.com and buy a "Save the Crab" or "I pinch" T-shirt at CafePress.com. Gil's blog plugged the debut of the TV spot for the 2007 Element SC on the CBS show "Rock Star: Supernova."

Gil's popularity meant that he was included in the campaign for the 2007 Element SC, which broke Sept. 28. Howell promises the new island will have more animals and more interactivity.

"They've built some brand equity in an image and an icon, and carrying that over to another season is a lot easier and a lot less expensive and has some resonance," says Forrester's Kim. "Kudos to [Honda's] flexibility."

At press time, RPA was mulling what to do with Gil's MySpace page now that he has his job back.

"[Marketers] use MySpace for the one-off, for things that have a limited lifespan," Barbush says. "We're looking at the long-term advantages of having this audience. People really became engaged, and that's not something we really want to give up now."

Search Surge

The Element and Friends campaign broke new ground in search, winning Yahoo's first Search Light award in February.

"What we wanted was, a) cost-efficient traffic, and, b) that traffic to engage deeply with the site," says RPA's Margolin. RPA chose "a few thousand keywords" ranging from "Honda Element" to "platypus" and about 20 conversion points on the island.

"Each keyword was judged on its ability to generate high engagement," Margolin says. Nontraditional keywords, while not the most powerful drivers, "definitely kept average cost-per-click low. Anything that helps contribute to lower cost-per-click while driving a lot of engagement interaction is good."

Search activity has increased 15 percent since the Element and Friends campaign began last fall, says Britt McColl, RPA spokeswoman. About 40 percent of island visitors arrived via search before the summer bridge campaign.

Forrester's Kim doubted that Web users researching animals would want to engage with a car commercial instead. "Maybe you get lucky and they fit the demographic of your buyer," Kim says. "But I think [Honda should] use it for finding information, rather than some offbeat branding tool."

Honda's Howell wants to keep testing new ways to use search to increase brand affinity.

"Search has become such a big part of people's lives," he says, adding, "We're looking at how we can use it to raise brand awareness. We'll continue to experiment with how best to do that."