- The film follows the complete film production of the successful Honda Accord 'Cog' tv advertisement. Filmed in France, edited in the UK, a colourful and jovial insight documented for future generations to enjoy.
- "Cog" is a British television and cinema advertisement launched by Honda in 2003 to promote the seventh-generation Accord line of cars. It follows the convention of a Rube Goldberg machine, utilizing a chain of colliding parts taken from a disassembled Accord. Wieden+Kennedy developed a GB£6 million marketing campaign around "Cog" and its partner pieces, "Sense" and "Everyday", broadcast later in the year. The piece itself was produced on a budget of £1 million by Partizan Midi-Minuit. Antoine Bardou-Jacquet directed the seven-month production, contracting The Mill to handle post-production. The 120-second final cut of "Cog" was broadcast on British television on 6 April 2003, during a commercial break in ITV's coverage of the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix. The campaign was very successful both critically and financially. Honda's UK domain saw more web traffic in the 24 hours after "Cog"'s television début than all but one UK automotive brand received during that entire month. The branded content attached to "Cog" through interactive television was accessed by more than 250,000 people, and 10,000 people followed up with a request for a brochure for the Honda Accord or a DVD copy of the advertisement. The media reaction to the advertisement was equally effusive; The Independent's Peter York described it as creating "the water-cooler ad conversation of the year", while Quentin Letts of The Daily Telegraph believed it was "certain to become an advertising legend" Here then, is a small in depth feature showing all the hard work, all the creativity and bringing glimpses into exactly how many 'takes' the whole tv advert took to shoot. It did actually take around 60 takes, over three days, to get the ad in the can. "Everything was very sensitive and fine-tuned. If you have a temperature change; if you have a little wind - anything could affect everything on the ground," says Bardou-Jacquet (Director) "But that was fun." Sometimes it was the reaction that failed (one remembers the dripping oil can as a particularly frustrating moment). Sometimes it was the camera, which had to do a complex dance up and down along a track to keep pace with the moving parts. Either way, the entire reaction needed to be reset each time, with anticipation growing for each fresh attempt. People were laying bets: 'Is it going to make it!? Come on, son! COME ON!' The full two-minute advert was only aired on a handful of occasions in April 2003, appearing in premium spots during major sporting events such as the Brazilian Grand Prix, before going out in shorter formats over the following weeks. The response was impressive and immediate, leading to a huge increase in traffic to the Honda website and lots of media coverage. The ad won a slew of industry awards too. A very interesting insight indeed.
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