What's the downside? Seems no one at Honda asked that question when the automaker decided to hire a team of 19 skydivers to form the word "Honda" in mid-air. In three minutes and 20 seconds. Live. On British national TV. The spot falls under (so to speak) Honda's new ad campaign: "If it's difficult, it's worth doing." If something goes seriously wrong, the Honda ad will test the limits of another, showbiz-oriented strapline "There's no such thing as bad publicity." The Guardian makes no mention of the ad's central lure– the possibility of death. It does, however, reports that Honda's already tested the concept. (So that's alright, then.) "The stunt is a means of gaining publicity for Honda's new multi-million pound ad campaign, which features 45 skydivers promoting the Honda Accord by creating a series of shapes over the Mojave desert to reflect new features on the car." i-VTEC® this! So why risk risking lives to do it live? ""We wanted to create something unmissable and what better way to produce something 'must see' than to stage the first live ad event on TV," Channel 4's sales director, Andy Barnes revealed. "It's about creating talkability on a big scale, managing the risk and being seen as pioneers for it." Let's hope "managing the risk" doesn't turn into paying off someone's widow.
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Gutsy move which definitely delivers on the ‘If it’s difficult, it’s worth doing’ theme.
Let’s hope it works; it is so far it’s being talked about and it’ll be the first time I’ve turned on the TV to watch an advert!
Formation jumps are surprisingly risky, at least “surprisingly” to people who’ve never done one. It’s a lot like formation flying in airplanes, in certain ways, in which a midair collision means certain disaster. Skydivers are different in that they don’t have structural parts to fall off and make them uncontrollable, but you’re moving fast enough that a midair body-collision can easily knock you out or even–it’s happened–kill you.
Parachuting accident fatality rate is about 1 in 100,000 jumps:
http://travel.howstuffworks.com/skydiving8.htm
How many people have been killed just driving a Honda? Have more been killed behind the wheel of a Ford? Given a choice, would you rather die in a BMW after being cut-off by a minivan driven by someone blabbing on a cellphone, or in a skydiving accident?
“Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. Why should we look for his errors when a brave man dies? Unless we can learn from his experience, there is no need to look for weakness. Rather, we should admire the courage and spirit in his life. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die?” (Charles Lindbergh, Journal entry (26 August 1938); later published in The Wartime Journals (1970) — see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh).
So I say: get over it. Watch some BASE jumping videos at YouTube. Accept that people are killed on the job every day. Shall we empty the coal mines on the off chance someone might get hurt and create needless work for the public relations department?
All of that is absolutely true, and as a pilot and former skydiver (and a variety of other risky endeavours) married to a rock-, ice- and mountain-climber, I understand it perfectly well. Farago’s point, however, was not that everybody should stay home and pull the sheets over their heads but that Honda is risking a huge PR disaster if something were to go wrong. And you can use your argument all you want after the USA Today headline “Three Killed in Grisly Finale of Honda TV Commercial” appears, but it won’t do much good.
And as you point out, though perhaps inadvertently, somewhere in the lead of that story will be the sentence, “YouTube footage of disaster horrifies millions of viewers.”
So long as they don’t show an ugly Accord, or skip those utterly-dripping pretensious Acura TSX spots, they’ve got to be making a better commercial than previous ones….
@mdf: great link! I was a little surprised to see sky-diving at 1 fatality in 100000 jumps; I had actually thought the “risk” was a fair bit less (won’t change my habits any!).
More interesting was the 1 in 6000 chance each year of dying – assuming each person in the US travels roughly 10k miles per year. Naturally this is all a little flawed as it doesn’t really account for multi-fatality accidents, etc, etc, however it does demonstrate the “relative” safety of stepping out of a perfectly good Cessna(!)…
Stephan Wilkinson: “Farago’s point, however, was not that everybody should stay home and pull the sheets over their heads but that Honda is risking a huge PR disaster if something were to go wrong.”
Well, if you or I can choose to go out and risk it all for a little adrenalin, then I think we can extend the same freedom to Honda as well. Unless we have other evidence (e.g., the CEO of Honda hollering into a phone ‘What do you mean they have no parachutes? They signed the contract. Get that plane off the ground now!’), it’s reasonable to assume everyone involved knew their risks, accepted them freely, and mitigated them as best they could.
I think Robert misses a larger point here that has been discussed at length on this and other forums: The risk-averse style of “management” here in America has led us to group-think corporations who play only for the home run. Despite Honda’s generally conservative styling, they built a company out of taking risks.
To challenge the established motorcycle companies in the 1950’s at a time when Japan enjoyed a reputation for poor quality was an enormous risk. To bring the Honda 50 to a country where motorbikes were virtually unknown constituted a real risk of failure. Their initial attempts at a mass-market automobile were met with derision, yet a few short years later, they introduced the CVCC engine as a means to build the first low pollution engines. Their venture into Formula 1 in the 60’s was initially viewed as silly, yet it didn’t take very long before they were seen as a serious competitor. I look at the Honda Asimo conducting an orchestra and wonder why, yet Honda’s engineers are surely learning something from the development of this idiosyncratic device.
As a former hang glider who still commutes by motorcycle, I watch YouTube videos of jet-powered men and guys flying in squirrel suits and look in awe. Not that I would do this today, but I am thrilled that there remain those who will try things which look totally crazy. Out of the commitment and bravery of a few arise the inspiration for millions.
I think Honda deserves credit for their willingness to try new ideas, and their ad series (at least in the UK) frequently capture this quest. I’d have a hell of a lot more sympathy for GM and Ford if we saw a few more screwball non-group-think ideas coming from Detroit. And before I’m flamed for that, the Corvette group is the exception; long live the ZR1.
Skydivers do this sort of thing for fun and adrenaline and I bet that everyone of them doing the Honda ad is eager to go, aware of the risks and enthralled by the extra attention they are going to get. This is the sort of thing they will be showing the grandkids, if they make it.
Breaking through the ad clutter is a very hard problem and I applaud Honda for finding a way to do it. Yes, it might go bad, but that doesn’t stop the Blue Angels from doing air shows.
One of my all time favorite car ads is the Honda parts ad made for the UK market several years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddbPoZjDaOA
Well worth the two minutes it takes to watch.
Ah, yes, the air-show phenomenon…as a pilot, I’ve always felt that it was counter-productive. The only time the Blues or Thunderbirds get the big-time attention is when one of them goes in.
Nobody in the U. S. knew who the Freccia Tricolore were until they killed a bunch of people at Ramstein AFB a few years ago and it was all over the TV news and print magazines for a few days.
By the way, did you know that the Honda commercial referenced above was done in one seamless take and that it took exactly 599 tries to get it done?
Stephan,
Are you referring to the parts ad or the skydiving ad?
The parts ad is amazing. And I want that Accord wagon. With a clutch. Maybe they will bring it here now that SUVs are tanking.
Society as a whole has a strong risk aversion, except, it seems, when it comes to war in iraq. There isn’t the need for the kind of physical risk taking that used to exist, but many retain the relevant genetics. Not me. And probably not anyone in my extended family.
If this thing were to end in disaster, I don’t think it would hurt Honda’s sales. The cars would still be viewed as high quality reliable. And the ad can’t help make a lot of people more aware of Honda. I think it’s a smart move, and a reasonable business risk. And if there are people who are happy to take the skydiving risk for whatever Honda is paying them, it’s fine with me. I wouldn’t do it, but the world would be pretty colorless if there weren’t people who would.
Have to amend previous statement about risk-taking in my family. One relative was Tom Hornbein, who was one of the first two to ascend the hazardous West Ridge of Everest, in the early ’60s. And my niece, who I took for plane flying lessons when she was 7, was recently spotted parasailing high above somewhere in ANZAC.
And if crossing the country on a bicycle is considered risky, I’m guilty. But I do’nt consider it very risky–with a helmet.
Parts ad.
My wife is still hoping to do the XC bike trip.