Having spent the first eight years of my career working on the retail side of automotive advertising, I can appreciate a well-done holiday/end of year clearance event. Every car company does them. You can't watch the local news without at least a couple car ads in every commercial break. That's why I especially appreciate the low-key clever campaign Honda is doing this year with their Happy Honda Days ads. Not only are they well written, they did a lot of them – so you're a lot less likely to get bored watching the same one or two holiday ads over and over again.
The spots feature celebrity spokesperson, Patrick Warburton, who delivers the lines in a tongue-in-cheek, low-key tone that draws you in. The ads have fairly simple premises, with most featuring a car on a simple blue set with maybe a Christmas tree and a few patches of "snow." Warburton looks almost Christmas Story-esque in his old-style hair cut, red striped tie and vee-neck sweaters.
Each ad kind of lampoons the traditional holiday car sale format. My favorite makes fun of the Lexus, giving a car with a big red bow on it ads. It starts with Warburton asking, "Are you a millionaire? If you're not, you probably don't give cars for Christmas." He pulls the bow off the car as he says this and goes on to talk about how you might, however, need a car for yourself and now's a good time to get one. But, never one to take themselves seriously, at the end he says you can't have the one he's standing by, because it's for his niece. While telling us this, he tries to put the bow back on it – because, after all, he IS a millionaire who can give cars as gifts.
Happy Honda Days – "Car Gift"
Another one I really like is where they make fun of the fact that all of these nationally produced ads (their's included) usually leave room at the end for a 5-second tag with an offer. So they open with the offer and then he makes fun of the convention of the normal ad format they've been using. It ends playing with the "dramatic" cuts in closer each sentence until it's just his lips on camera saying "too close." Good stuff.
Happy Honda Days – Giant Offer
And let's wrap it up with the ad where they say they're not going to use the holiday angle to sell you, then use a different (and still holiday) angle blatantly at the end.
Happy Honda Days – The Holiday Angle
There are a lot more of them, if you want to watch them all. Most of them are suggested after you watch one of the ones above. It's my favorite holiday campaign. How about you? What holiday ad campaign has made you feel jolly all over? Or if you have a suggestion for another ad of the week, let me know that too.
Mike McClure – Looking more like Santa every year.
