Honda's Super Bowl = Super Mistake

Honda launched their "Ferris Beuller" themed commercial a week early of the Super Bowl, attempting to first make their ad viral to an Internet audience and to younger fans of the movie. However, I have two main problems with this advertisement. I feel the release of this ad was not handled appropriately, and I feel that the content of the advertisement was a truly missed opportunity by Honda.

Making a Super Bowl commercial a viral sensation is nothing new in the modern age of television commercial advertisement. Many companies have successfully accrued widespread interest in their ad days before the Super Bowl and made great success of the situation. Honda however, released their entire commercial, even a "full" or "expanded" version on the web, ruining any chance of surprise for viewers watching the Super Bowl programming. The suspense is what people should be talking about - not the actual commercial that people have already seen. I think they made a large mishap with that decision unless they somehow change what has already been released and surprise us at the Super Bowl.

The content of the ad, I thought to be a missed opportunity. Not only were the references to the movie only mostly funny - but they could have done a much better job choosing what scenes to recreate and what jokes to redo. Also, I felt that the ending, asking the viewer "what are you waiting for?" was a bit unusually, and may hit the viewer the wrong way. I know that Honda thought they had a slam dunk with this ad, but for me it was a bit to sloppily thrown together, and without enough thought on the content. Also, I'm not sure who the target audience is, though I'm assuming it was those born in the 1970-1990s. The jokes and references could have been more funny and more surprising.

Though these are only my two cents, I feel that Honda had a great idea, just didn't create the product of advertisement they could have - and really leave the viewer wishing they had.