I've owned my 2008 Honda Civic for 3 years. It's the first Honda I've owned and I am hooked. I love the tight handling, power, solid design and the overall quality feel. Its one of the best machines i have owned and cannot stop loving to drive it. Its a different feel. At the time it was launched in India, it was every teenagers dream car during that time.
Honda has been quite good with its advertising overall all over the world. To launch its
latest sport hybrid coupe, the Honda CR-Z, Honda launched a facebook game called Car Town. Its a interactive game somewhat on the lines of Farmville and Cityville which allows players to use virtual currency and to purchase,customise and store hundreds of vehicles and build and maintain their own virtual garages. Players can take these ehicles to race,complete roadtrips to earn points and buy additional vehicles and car related products.
I was quite fascinated with this concept and decided to give this game a try. Let me tell you ,it was quite impressive and addictive, i found myself washing cars,racing and fixing my friends vehicles on facebook for a good 3 hours. If your a facebook gamer, and if you were ever addicted to Farmville,you will get addicted to this too.
In order to promote the CR-Z, Honda car town developers added clickable ads featuring the Honda CR-Z, such as in-game billboards next to the players garages. Players can click on it and view the CR-Z video and buy one for their garage.
Furthermore, the game version of the car is uniquely enabled to travel to both the beach and snow-covered environments simultaneously, highlighting the CR-Z’s sporty and fuel-efficient capabilities.
Below i have given the link to the game, everyone reading this should definitely give it a try:
http://apps.facebook.com/cartown/?ref=ts
Some Statistics
There are:-
6071049 Active Monthly Users
37,201- Total Likes
I think its an awesome campaign and the execution was great and Honda has created quite a Buzz with this campaign and might have convinced quite a few people to buy Honda Cars.
So have you heard of this campaign before?What do you think of it? do you think it might influence your decision to buy a Honda Car?
Hi Mazahir. interesting to know that there's such campaign. i have never heard of them before. probably it wont influence me to buy a car from the total "likes". but it will definitely make me seek further information what so good about this car or even visit the dealer.
ReplyDeleteHey Diandra,
ReplyDeletethe whole point of the campaign was to raise awareness about the car and they were not expecting the customers to buy the car, the fact that you were convinced to know about the car and visit the dealer is the objective of honda's campaign..once u visit the dealer and test drive the car..you will probably make a purchase decision..so in a way they were able to raise awareness for the car with their campaign.
Great work. I didn't ever come across this. But seems to be well organised and seemed to have worked well for honda. I would imagine especially from a brand awareness perspective that this could work well. Like Diandra, I wouldn't buy the car because of it, but may be elevated in my evoked set when I next decide to buy a car. However, it would have to be something I come across at the time of looking at cars.
ReplyDeleteRoss
It's amazing how car marketers are able to think and plan long-term. They know that their customers don't buy a car every year, so build campaigns focusing on building brand equity. This even extends to generating fans amongst kids - I still remember my Mattel Hot Wheels cars, and which brand were my favourites.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what sort of invesment Honda have put into Car Town? Is anyone able to find some data on this?
Keep up the good work, Mazahir!
Interesting post Mazahir! I think it's a long-term strategy, because I think teenagers and kids would be the most probable users of this game. I agree with @Wags that this in an excellent way to build brand in the long-term, but like Diandra and Ross, I wouldn't buy the car because of the game, because I don't like to play games so much!
ReplyDelete@Ross- thanx for posting your views..well i guess Honda is not trying to achieve people to go and buy the car but for people to take notice of their new hybrid..and wanted to move from the traditional way of advertising such as print and tv and move to the social bandwagon and i feel they have done a pretty good job because this campaign is not only different,it is interactive..so I'm sure they were trying to get people informed and involved simultaneously..and if u have clicked on the link and played the game on Facebook i think the job is almost done..
ReplyDelete@ wags- thanks for the post..well i tried to find out Hondas investment in the campaign but without any success,but i was able to get a quote from Steve Center, Honda’s vice president for advertising-"You can have 200,000 people drive past a billboard on an L.A. freeway every day, but you don’t have the same level of engagement as when people select “Car Town,’”…so I'm sure whatever they have invested have given them good returns..:)
@ paulette-thank for your views…i feel its a very good long term strategy which intends to actually engage its current and potential customers…its a very good platform considering its target market is 25-30 year old males..and all males are either car junkies or video game junkies or both..and combining both these aspects in a way to advertise is quite a smart move!!