Honda: The Cog

Honda's The Cog commercial was no where near as viral as the Old Spice's commercials but was incredibly successful in its own right. This advertisement is similar to the previously discussed ad Guiness Tipping Point. Both of these commercials uses a cleverly designed chain reaction course to entertain its viewers. Such a creative and entertaining commercial resulted in Honda's site being the second most visited automobile site within 24 hours.



Prior to this marketing campaign, Honda products were experiencing a decline in European sales since 1998. Their products were considered inferior and Nissan took their second place as a Japanese automobile manufacturer. The interactive version of The Cog were viewed by over 250,000 people with an average of two and a half minutes spent viewing.

The entire campaign carried a substantial price tag of around $9.5 million. Around $1.6 million went directly to production of The Cog commercial. During production, an insane -606- takes was required in order to capture the perfect domino sequence. Since much of the course needed to be reset after every take, the whole filming process took four days to complete.