Ad of the Day: Honda

Wieden + Kennedy in London has always had an inspired creative collaboration with Honda, going back to spots like "Grrr" in 2004 and "Cog" in 2003. The agency's latest effort for the automaker is not as complicated as those earlier commercials, but its visual simplicity strongly communicates the message about the inspiration for Honda engineering and the company's clean design esthetic.

More than that, the imagery here does double duty: This campaign highlights the carmaker's sponsorship of documentaries on the U.K.'s Channel 4, and the look of the spots draws upon that that real-world filmmaking. The positioning—"The more we look, the more we learn"—is testament to Honda's own approach to problem solving even as it encourages viewership of the Channel 4 offerings. W+K ties the commercials' disparate images together with a "match-cutting" execution that uses a thread of movement, sound, colors or shapes to link the action between the clips, which end with a feature in a Honda product. For the Honda CRV's adaptive headlights, for example, the movement of an eagle's head carries across other imagery involving a robot, a security camera, a human eye, a theater spotlight, a flashlight and, finally, a Honda headlight. The simplicity here works for the complex client mandate which requires the agency to feature a breadth of Honda products ranging from cars and motorbikes to the company's lawn and garden line.

The new TV spots are supported by a website, www.honda.co.uk/curiosity, from Collective London, which features a "How curious are you?" competition with questions and will also include additional Honda and Channel 4 content relevant to programming.