Honda looks to sustainability for new campaign

Published May 23, 2014 at 7:45 am

It can be a challenge for marketers to create engaging campaigns that will garner a lots of attention. For this reason, marketers turn to creativity to generate unique ideas that will make a brand stand out from the crowd. One effective way of making an impression is to provide people with an unexpected twist on an every day item or occurrence.

Lots of people drive. Everyone drinks water. But would you drink water from the exhaust pipe of your car?

It may seem like a far-fetched idea, but this is what Honda is suggesting with a marketing campaign for the Honda FCX Clarity, a car powered by compressed hydrogen, according to Adweek. The creators of the campaign decided to make Honda brand bottled water “H2O” to demonstrate just how cleanly the hydrogen powered car runs. As an Australian ad for the car states, the exhaust is “Pure, fresh H2O that the EPA has certified is drinkable.”

By tying the concepts of car emissions and drinkability together through the representative bottle of water, the campaign draws attention to the sustainability of the vehicle. As vehicle emissions continue to pollute the environment, showing that the byproduct of this car is environmentally safe highlights a major benefit of the product.

While this is a positive aspect in and of itself, it is important to note that sustainability is somewhat of a trend. A 2013 study by brand consultancy BBMG found that over one third of consumers worldwide “view style, status and environmentalism as intertwined,” as detailed in Adweek.

The campaign is being used to demonstrate the company’s sustainability efforts. As consumers become increasingly concerned with environmental issues, brands that can tune into current trends, like sustainability, can position themselves to be noticed by the demographics most interested in these issues.