Honda's 'Social Experiment' Nets 2 Million Facebook Friends - Advertising Age - News

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Honda's 'Social Experiment' Nets 2 Million Facebook Friends
Cross-Platform Push Exceeds Goals, but Will it Sell Cars?

By Jean Halliday
Published: October 22, 2009


DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- Honda is feeling the love these days. American Honda Motor Co.'s vehicle line is in the midst of what it deems a very successful social-marketing blitz that the marketer has dubbed the "Social Experiment."


Honda's 'Everybody Knows Somebody Who Loves a Honda' Facebook page
In August, Honda quietly launched an official Facebook page, themed "Everybody Knows Somebody Who Loves a Honda," to recruit fans of the brand. Owners are encouraged to join as overall Honda fans as well as fans of a specific model, and to learn how they are connected to friends, family members and other owners around the world. Visitors can upload photos of their cars or link up to owners of their favorite old Honda.
Honda initially supported the site with a sprinkling of ads on Facebook. "It wasn't a big media buy, but it got a lot of attention," said Tom Peyton, senior manager-national advertising. Earlier this month, TV was added to the mix, with 15- and 30-second spots featuring actual owners. The commercials were created by Honda's longtime agency, independent RPA, Santa Monica, which developed the concept. The buy, also handled by RPA, encompasses prime-time programming such as "30 Rock," "How I Met Your Mother," "Dancing With the Stars" and NFL football.

The campaign got a huge boost after a one-day targeted homepage takeover Oct. 19 on high-reach sites, including ESPN.com, CNN.com and SportsYahoo.com. That more than doubled the number of Facebook fans into the range of 1.7 million. (As of press time Oct. 22, the number had topped 2 million).

The results thus far have blown away Mr. ...

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