Honda’s Latest Campaign, Fresh on the Vine

Honda is combining two hot digital marketing trends in one for its latest campaign: short-form video and real-time marketing.

The auto brand, with the help of agency RPA, is using Vine for a real-time marketing response campaign called #wantnewcar to promote its annual “Summer Clearance Sales Event.” Honda is asking fans to tweet to @honda about why they need a new car, and Honda will tweet back with a custom Vine video response that incpororates each person’s specific reason and why they should make theirs a Honda at the sales event.

“There are a lot of people out on Twitter who aren’t happy with their cars,” said Susie Rossick, senior manager of regional marketing at Honda. “We centered our TV message around their real tweets and frustration, and the Vine idea was a logical extension to that. Identifying real frustration and recognizing the people feeling it.”

Oreo’s Superbowl blackout tweet has been hailed as the prime example of successful real-time marketing, and ever since brands have been trying to nab some real-time buzz of their own. But what people forget is that the Oreo tweet didn’t happen by accident. There was a ton of planning involved. Similarly, there has been careful planning on Honda’s and RPA’s part, along with a special war room of RPA staffers on call to make sure the Vine videos are in keeping with the brand voice and get created quickly.

“It’s a very coordinated process of gathering the tweets, vetting the tweeters, coming up with ideas, submitting them to legal, then shooting them,” explained Rossick. “Honda and RPA are working in real time, on site, to condense the time frame and get them uploaded quickly.”

Here are some of the best examples of personalized real-time #wantnewcar Vine responses Honda has created so far:

 

 

 

 

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