Honda’s CR-V Will Make Its Third Super Bowl Appearance in This Year’s Game

Today the automaker announced that its creative agency of record RPA will again handle its Big Game spot after creating last year’s “A New Truck to Love,” which starred a gang of sheep performing Queen’s “Somebody to Love” to promote the Ridgeline model. This time, the product in question is a new, “completely redesigned” edition of the CR-V, which remained the top-selling SUV in America this year.

“The Super Bowl is the appropriate stage to introduce America to the bold and sophisticated new Honda CR-V,” said Honda’s assistant vice president of auto marketing Susie Rossick in a statement. “With the largest audience and reach of any single television event, the Super Bowl is a platform befitting the CR-V’s status as the best-selling SUV in America, and the perfect place to celebrate CR-V’s 20th anniversary.” The fifth generation CR-V went on sale last month.

The CR-V last appeared in 2012’s Super Bowl XLVI by way of “Matthew’s Day Off,” which starred Matthew Broderick in an extensive tribute to the 1986 film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Honda also aired two ads during Super Bowl XLI in 2007.

A company spokesperson did not provide any additional details regarding the campaign creative beyond stating that it “builds on last year’s widely viewed Ridgeline pickup introduction,” and RPA deferred to the client for comment. The agency has worked with Honda since its inception in 1986 and retained the creative portion of the parent brand’s business in a 2013 review.

Honda Motor Company spent approximately $362 million promoting the Honda brand in 2015 and more than $210 million during the first half of 2016, according to Kantar Media. Fox has placed the value of a single Super Bowl LI ad buy at $5 million.