Difficult is worth doing

Coverage from The Sun (left).

'The N was a little shaky and the D partially obstructed by cloud but a team of skydivers successfully made advertising history last night when they spelled out the word H-o-n-d-a live on air.

The UK's first live advert, filmed during the first break of the reality show Come Dine with Me, passed without a hitch. At 8.10pm, the skydivers - including European champion Phil Curtis, four world champions and nine national skydiving champions - were given the green light to clamber on to the outside of the aeroplane and, following a signal from the team leader, threw themselves into the air.

As they plummeted to Earth from 12,000 metres (40,000ft), they undoubtedly had the car manufacturer's advertising strapline 'Difficult is worth doing' ringing in their ears. Within seconds they had formed the initial H, and O soon followed. There was a hairy moment when the first N looked as if it was drifting apart, and as a passable D took shape the group were momentarily engulfed by grey cloud, but the finale of a beautifully symmetric A was faultless.

With their mission accomplished the team released their parachutes and floated to the ground amid much whooping. One skydiver opened his palms to the camera, revealing the time-honoured message: "Hello mum".'

So said the Guardian of last night's live Honda ad.

In life you have to take leaps of faith if you are going to get somewhere.
Throughout their history Honda has never been afraid of doing this.

The 'Difficult Is Worth Doing' strategy was born of the truth.  Soichiro Honda said 'If you choose the simple way, it will be the easiest way, it may be profitable, but that is not my way of business. I believe that only by choosing the hard way is there progress'.

The premium corporate D sector is one of most challenging in the car market. The development of Honda's new Accord took a leap of faith from their engineers to develop from the ground up a completely new car.

Wieden + Kennedy chose skydiving formations for the accord launch campaign because of their delicate precision moves in the air. Human engineering. A metaphor for the Honda engineers' work on the ground. We wanted to attempt to make shapes of parts of the car using real skydivers as it was a challenge - quite literally a leap of faith.  The 'Difficult Is Worth Doing' blog and teaser spots introduced you to some of the Jump team who were going to attempt this and the difficulties that they faced.  This built conversations online.

Channel 4 came to us with media space for a live 3 minute spot. We took them through the strategy and our idea of skydivers creating formations. They took our original concept and had the idea of building the Honda logo live in freefall. In conjunction with this we produced the main TV spo(which breaks on Sunday) while they were producing the live jump.  This is a great example of collaboration with new media opportunities.  Releasing the live event just before the launch spot breaks caused even more noise.

If you missed the live ad last night, here it is:

Comments

[Johnny]

I like that!

[matthew]

awesome.

[turd]

As a child of the eighties, who saw innumerable sky dives on programmes like Jim'll Fix It or Record Breakers, this was massively unimpressive.

If, however, it's the notion of a 'live ad' that was the point, I'm not sure that worked either. How do I know it's live? Because you told me it was. Next time do it in front of a live audience in Wembley Stadium. Why not get Junior Knieval to jump over a load of advertising execs on a Honda bike?

[Ben]

I liked it.

[Acynicaloptimist]

Without over-inflating your egos too much I'd just like to say that was an exciting and brave piece of TV.

Unlike Matthew (see post above) - who I think it's safe to assume may well be missing the point of it all and whose snide remarks bear the hallmarks of someone who is probably a bit of a wanker - I was genuinely engaged by the ad.

Indeed, the anxiety over the formation of the 'N' even led me to shout at the TV, imploring the guys to hook it up. That sounds incredibly sad - but in the moment it was the impulse that I felt.

Anyway, keep the faith - and I'm looking forward to see where you take it next.

[Acynicaloptimist]

Apologies to Matthew - I think it was actually 'turd' who trotted out the lame-arse humour.

[Johnny]

when it's live, you have one of those 'shit your pants' moments until it's over

if it fails, which is often and unfortunately what much of the British public want, then they laugh and point fingers

when it works, there is cynicism or, hmm, it was alright

yep, the skydivers got it right, but it was brave to expose yourselves to what could have been a smackdown of failure

[Aaron]

That is absolutely amazing. But it doesn't change the fact that Honda is not cool. Not yet anyway.

[Moose G.]

Wow, just absolutely amazing.

Really wish i'd have seen it live on TV tonight.

And i agree, honda isn't yet cool, but give it a couple of years.

[Terry]

sorry to hear about the plane crash.

[millioneurodare]

I loved the script and the spirit of challenge it reflects. I live by a similar motto: "Life without challenge is a life wasted". And boy did I get myself in a fix recently. A friend asked me in a conversation whether it was possible for one person to raise 1 million euro in 90 hours, without selling anything and with a couple of conditions in place. And being me I said yes. Now he has dared me to pull it off. You can see the conditions on http://millioneurodare.googlepages.com.

Wish me luck on this one.

PS: My sincere condolences to the families of those lost in the plane crash.

[turd]

'Acynicaloptimist'... I won't argue with the comment about me being a wanker, but I certainly wasn't trying to be humorous and maybe I did miss the point of it all - care to enlighten me?

Again, I'd ask how it's possible to tell that it's live?

As for my comments being snide, that's your view, I could call your comments fawning. And, unlike you, I know my comments will have no bearing on where W+K go next.

[sohbet]

thank you

[Рекламное агентство BMGUkraine]

BMG Ukraine - рекламное агентство полного цикла, является структурным подразделением BMG Global, что позволяет сосредоточить усилия на предоставления услуг в сфере рекламного и медиа бизнеса. На сегодняшний день мы являемся одним из ведущих рекламных агентств в области разработки и размещения рекламы, проведения рекламных компаний - www.bmgukraine.com

[sohbet kanallari]

thank you admin.

[Seviyeli Sohbet]

thanks for the Article