Unstoppable Dreams

It’s very rare that a client asks you to do some brand work that’s 100% pure brand. Usually, there’s a new product or service that’s a mandate to highlight and romance, and if you’re lucky, the product exudes the brand, making the creative task a lot easier. For this campaign, the task was to express the Honda brand in the most powerful and emotional way possible, with a mandate to use anything in the Honda universe to do this.

For the past few years, we have ruthlessly focused on what makes Honda truly unique and special. This comes down to something fundamentally human, something that anyone can emotionally connect with—a challenging spirit, the determination to get up and carry on, even in the face of failure. The determination to make a dream a reality is not all roses and success. You will fail, but the question is, will you get back up, learn from that failure, and keep moving forward? That’s fundamental to the Honda company DNA and the associates that work there: a belief in the power of dreams and having the determination to get up every day and make it happen. The brief we developed was to focus on this spirit of determination and to not shy away from showing failure. In a sense, the strategic approach was to share the Honda DNA, warts and all, in a very human, emotional way that would get people rooting for the Honda brand.

To bring this message and sentiment to life creatively, we show the journey of different individuals each with strong ties to Honda, and each on their own journey to achieving their dreams. Our commercial is structured around the device of a reverse poem. Supers scroll over the scenes, read by John Cena, telling a bleak story of failure and giving up on one’s dreams—but once we reach the halfway point of our film, when our characters have seemingly reached their lowest points, the scroll changes direction and the lines of the poem are read in reverse order. This gives the poem and film a whole new meaning, one of hope, determination, and, finally, resounding triumph. Our film features Brazilian racing legend Ayrton Senna, Formula One World Champion Max Verstappen, and off-road racing icon Jeff Proctor, along with three characters: an engineer developing a powerful innovation in urban mobility, another engineer perfecting the upcoming Honda Prelude, and a young, aspiring motocross rider on her Honda CRF bike. Each of them experiences failure and setbacks on their path to success, but that doesn’t stop them. As the poem reverses, they find the resolve and determination to pick themselves up and carry on chasing their dreams. It’s a powerful story that everyone can relate to and connect with emotionally. Even John Cena, the narrator and voice of the Honda brand, shared how much it resonated with him and his own story.

Launching during Sunday Night Football and continuing to target a range of high-impact and contextually relevant media placements—such as November's Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix and high-profile cinema debuts—will further enhance the emotional impact of this campaign.

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