Acura unveiled MullenLowe’s Super Bowl ad, part of its larger “Precision Crafted Performance” campaign, featuring the Acura NSX and a certain Van Halen song.
Set to “Runnin’ With The Devil” (obviously), the 30-second spot, entitled “What He Said,” keeps things relatively simple, allowing the supercar to mostly speak for itself. Eschewing voiceover, the spot opens on melting aluminum, showing a dramatization of the vehicle’s creation and several shots of the finished product before playing on its choice of music selection, following David Lee Roth‘s squeals and other vocal intonations with the line, “What He Said.” Notably, the NSX is well outside the means of most Super Bowl viewers. Retailing for about $156,000, Acura estimates the demand for the made-to-order supercar at a mere 800 vehicles per year. So why choose the NSX to promote during in its first big game ad since 2012?
“This car is a representation of precision crafted performance and we are looking for the halo effect on all of our models,” Acura manager, national advertising Leila Cesario explained to AdAge.
The song, which Acura claims Van Halen has never allowed to be used in an ad before, was carefully selected for the platform.
“Ultimately we knew that we wanted this to be a rock song,”Cesario told The New York Times. “The Super Bowl is a big American platform. It needed a big American band that screams excitement.”