Bad advertising? No advertising? No problem.

By Gonzalo López Martí    LMMIAMI.COM

• I was watching the award-winners at the Cannes Festival last week.
• Sifting through the usual parade of bogus entries one thing piqued my attention.
• Honda (the car maker) steadily creates beautiful campaigns in the UK.
• Over there, it seems, they are trying to “build the brand”.
• Here in America, not so much.
• Why?
• I’ll tell you why: Honda does NOT need advertising in America.
• The product itself is so good, reliable and sturdy that they can just mail their campaigns in.
• Do any of you colleagues know what their ad budget is here in the US of A?
• I did some perfunctory research online and couldn’t find any reliable figures but I’m sure as hell it is one of the lowest among its competitors.
• The quality of the product speaks for itself.
• Its reputation precedes it.
• Safety, reliability, sturdiness, efficiency.
• No need to broadcast it.
• Word of mouth is ‘nuff.
• Who needs marketing execs when you employ the best engineers and industrial designers in the world?
• Honda could do away with their marketing communications department altogether and nobody would notice.
• D’you know which are the most sought-after vehicles by carjackers?
• The Accord and the Civic.
• In that order.
• The reason: they fetch the best prices at chop shops.
• I kid you not.
• Yup.
• You would’ve thought Merc or Beamer, right?
• Nope.
• The Honda Accord and the Civic are the most stolen cars in America.
• They have been for decades.
• Not sure it’d be the best tagline ever for a carmaker.
• Or the worst.
• Hondas stay on the road for so long that there’s vibrant demand for parts from & for decades-old models.
• Not unlike Rolex watches, the aftermarket for Honda parts –legit or otherwise- is plenty profitable.
• Now that’s what I call quality.
• It is reassuring AND unsettling to drive the car preferred by thieves.
• Still it beats driving a muscle car or a German import which, like any marketer knows, are the choice of males with small genitals.
• Have you ever negotiated with a Honda salesman?
• I have.
• Repeatedly.
• I might be a bit of a masochist cuz I keep doing it again and again.
• My advice: don’t even bother bargaining.
• They have the upper hand and they know it.
• They have the attitude of a French nightclub bouncer (only with a few more pounds around the waist and an ill-fitting off-the-rack suit).
• They are not hostile, no no no, they are just mildly annoyed and utterly uninterested in anything you might say.
• Just pay up and drive away.
• Mechanics love Hondas because their inner workings are simple, intuitive, way easier to repair than other makes.
• Unlike Jaguar, for example.
• Real design, folks, is usually found under the hood.
• Then again, I’m not saying Honda ads in America are wrong or bad.
• They are, for lack of a better word, bland.
• An afterthought.
• A footnote.
• As I said above, they are mailing them in.
• They don’t seem to really care about the ad thingy.
• In some cases, their ads are so loopy and esoteric that they delight award show juries.
• Is it a carefully calculated marketing ploy to fool us?
• Some sort of planned negligence?
• Affected nonchalance?
• Sprezzatura?
• Don’t know what sprezzatura means?
• Google it.
• Honda never appeals to the usual advertising tricks: attempting to question the consumer’s self-esteem or social standing.
• Buy this product and you’ll be more sexually attractive, manly, successful, adventuresome and so on and so forth.
• Their cars seamlessly skew the usual design tics and cosmetic gimmicks of most other brands.
• No flash.
• Form following function.
• Frugal but never cheap.
• Honda makes cars, light trucks, motorcycles, aircrafts, nautical engines, power generators, lawn mowers, robots that act as household servants.
• Motorsports?
• Don’t get me started.
• Since the 60s they’ve been supplying engines and all sorts of state-of-the-art technology to dozens of Formula 1, IndyCar and MotoGP racing teams, just to name a few.
• Bastards look eye to eye with Ferrari.
• And you thought it was not really a cool, let alone glamourous, brand.
• Honda was Apple before Apple existed.
• Want a secure bet to park some savings for a long smooth ride?
• Buy HMC (NYSE) &/or 7267 (Tokyo Stock Exchange)