‘Go big or go home’: Honda maps brand fame strategy
Honda marketing chief Eva Barrett has appointed an agency village to help the brand create big ideas to win over consumers and drive growth in the crowded auto category.
Honda has appointed an agency village, led by creative agency Special and media agency Zenith, to position the brand for growth in the crowded auto category.
From today, the Japanese auto brand will work with the Publicis-owned media agency Zenith, independent creative agency Special, WPP-owned PR agency Burson, Publicis-owned digital specialists Sapient and indie creative shop Howatson & Co, to manage advertising, marketing and media for the business’s portfolio of brands.
The agency village marks a significant turnaround for the brand, which had previously combined media and creative with one agency, Howatson & Co, and was in the process of creating an in-house media agency with Lution.
However, Honda’s general manager brand, marketing and CX Eva Barrett said the move aimed to tap into the specialist skills of each agency and create an environment to deliver the category-leading work.
“I’m a big fan of church and state when it comes to creative and media,” Ms Barrett told the Australian.
“Over the years lots of agencies have been trying to get all of their media clients to also be their creative clients as well.
“But, I believe that there’s a certain tension that comes with having a creative agency and a media agency that work together, collaborate together, but they’re both specialists in their own right.
“A lot of what’s been sold in the industry around efficiencies is not necessarily there, because agencies still work siloed and [clients] still need to work with different planners, so you end up working separately anyway.
“Having church and state works really well in integrated agency villages.
“You have the best media agency, you have the most creative agency, you have the best PR agency, and that’s how you deliver big work that actually makes a difference,” she said.
The move aims to unlock the brand’s potential, especially in the highly competitive automotive category, where the surge of new brands is creating a significant challenge for Honda to gain share of voice.
The flood of new automotive brands, led by the rush of new Chinese automotives and electric vehicles has seen the market accommodate 70 brands, which is significantly larger than the US which has about 50 brands.
“We are in a highly competitive market, which means we need to play at a different level – it’s a whole new ball game in terms of how we go to market and how we show up in such a competitive industry,” Ms Barrett said.
“Our biggest opportunity is to create amazing, creative work. Brand is a huge opportunity for us and if we’re going to cut through in such a highly competitive market.
“It can’t just be with media. It has to be really great creative that’s going to cut through and get noticed by people.”
The agency village will work together to crack integrated briefs and help Honda to elevate its brand in the market, as it readies for a run of major launches including the Honda Prelude Hybrid launch, plus the new CRV, the electric Super One range and the ZRV.
“Ultimately, as a marketing team, our role is to drive growth, both to ensure the long-term sustainability and the long-term viability of the Honda brand.
“To do that we need great people and we need to be working integrated and we need great specialist agencies and great villages that will get us to good work that is going to cut through all the noise, that is going to stand out and look at every single touch point right across customer lifetime value.
“The brand is not broken.
“It still drives a lot of nostalgia with people. We’ve just been a little bit invisible and we’ve lacked that brand building, emotional work.
“We’ve got a really great stepping-off point.
“It’s not like we’re a new brand, especially in the auto industry with all of these new brands coming in, some of them have very low awareness.
“We have years of Japanese heritage, history, innovation and 60 years of F1. So there’s a lot to build on.
“We just need to be highly visible, to have impact and to do big emotional creative work.”
Honda has undertaken in-depth quantitative and qualitative research, which revealed strong awareness and love for the brand among consumers.
However, Ms Barrett said the task is for the brand to increase its presence and drive emotional connections to re-engage consumers.
“We’ve become so caught up in efficiencies in marketing because of digital and everything’s being optimised,” she said.
“But actually, it’s emotion that matters. I believe you have to go big or go home. Because, consumers don’t see your efficiencies.
“What matters is effectiveness. Because effectiveness drives scale and that drives impact.
“If we’re in a world where we’re just totally dragged down into programmatic and performance and every little bit of ROAS [return on advertising spend], we’re losing.”
To help manage the creative efficiencies Ms Barrett has hired an in-house creative director who will report to her and help manage a team of freelancers to enable the business to scale up and down as needed.
“[The in-house creative team’s] role is to take the big idea from Special and roll that out,” Ms barrett explained.
“I’m not looking to them for the big ideas or to be the tier-one agency. It’s more about how we drive efficiencies in developing the assets that need to go in the media plans, for example.
“The CMO role is a business role. It’s a strategic growth driver role and a business strategy role – it is not just the making department. If you have marketing teams that become the making departments, then they are at risk.
“If you can continue to drive the business and drive growth with the CFO, and the senior executive team, then marketing roles remain really important.”
