Honda's "Cog," made by Wieden + Kennedy in 2003, is one of the most famous car ads of all time. The remarkable Rube Goldberg-style spot featured a chain reaction of car parts that culminated in a finished Honda Accord. It took more than four months of prep time and 70 takes for the final shoot.
"How often do viewers get a glimpse of a car in anything less than the most flattering light, let alone disassembled with parts strewn around? It's a testament to a brave client and agency," Adweek's Eleftheria Parpis wrote at the time.
The spot remains iconic. A couple of years ago, W+K's Neil Christie even received a letter from a 10-year-old girl who seemed to have fallen in love with the ad. "It was astonishing how you did all of it," she wrote. "How do you make it so smooth? It must have taken you months to get it right."
Now, Honda Canada and the Ontario Honda Dealers—and ad agency ds+p—have made the first official sequel to "Cog." Check it out below. Everything goes great. Until it doesn't.
Honda tells AdFreak that the action was all caught in camera. But "in spite of the short length of the Rube Goldberg machine and the fact that it was intended to fail, it still took over 175 attempts to capture the action all in one continuous take."
CREDITS
Client: Honda Canada/Ontario Honda Dealers Association
Honda Central Zone Manager: Ray Chong
Honda Field Engineering Specialist: Michael Menard
Agency: ds+p
ds+p Founding Partner: Doug Robinson
Creative Director: Brian Murray
Art Directors: Matthew Camara, Ryan Dzur
Copywriters: Brian Murray, Sam Cote
Agency Producer: Sean Paul Brady
Account Team: Adam White, Jorge Velis, Sean Paul Brady
Production: The Video Store
Director: Ante Kovac
Executive Producers: Ian Webb, Harland Weiss, Donovan Boden
Director of Photography: Kris Bonnell
Production Designer: Jay Pooley
Editor: Alain Elliott, Married to Giants
Producer: Amanda Cuda, Married to Giants
Color: Eric Whipp, Alter Ego
Visual Effects: Kaelem Cahill, Wingman
Executive Producer: Samantha Simpson, Wingman
Sound Design, Mix: Didier Tovel, SNDWRx Audio Postproduction
Assistant: Mark James
