04/29/03

JEFF MANNING

Devotees of Mousetrap know that the primary attraction of the children's board game was watching to see whether the contraption of gears, chutes and ramps would actually work and send the plastic trap descending over your toy mouse.

Imagine a supercharged Mousetrap designed by a team of engineers, sculptors and art directors on a $1 million budget, and you get the idea behind Wieden+Kennedy's new ad for Honda.

The spot, dubbed "Cog," was introduced to raves earlier this month in the United Kingdom. "Cog" features 85 car parts linked in a beautifully synchronized dance that ends in the introduction of Honda's new Accord.

No car careening along a mountain highway. No classic rock. No truck plowing through a bog in ultra-slow motion. Just a bunch of ball bearings, valve stems, flywheels and mufflers quietly smacking into one another in a chain reaction that would make Rube Goldberg smile.

Dan Wieden is also smiling. The wide acclaim that greeted the Honda ad in England is a much-needed counterbeat of enthusiasm when a stubborn slump in ad spending continues in much of the industry. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the recession and the war in Iraq, many advertisers pulled in their horns and reined in their spending.

"What we experienced was a complete shutdown of the business," Wieden said. "There was so much fear out there. The clients were just freaked."

Whether coincidence or not, since the debut of "Cog," Wieden+Kennedy has found itself in the running for some significant accounts. It is a finalist for the America Online account with New York-based BBDO as well as the anti-tobacco campaign funded by the tobacco industry as part of a landmark legal settlement.

"I almost hate to sound a note of optimism," Wieden said. "But now at least we're seeing some major clients hiring new agencies."

The industry downturn has not been all bleak for Wieden+Kennedy. It has landed some big new accounts along the way. Among those was Honda, which awarded the Portland agency its United Kingdom business in the fall of 2001.

It was the first time the agency had served as agency of record on an automotive account since its much ballyhooed stint with Subaru. At the time, agency officials said the Honda business would lead to $28 million to $30 million in annual billings.

The "Cog" spot grew out of Wieden's efforts to portray Honda's engineering prowess. Although Honda is among the leading brands in the industry in the United States, it has fought an image problem in England, where its products are viewed as inferior to the elite European brands.

"We used the term 'warm engineering' to describe the feeling that we wanted to get across with the new Accord," said Kim Papworth, creative director of Wieden's London office. "It's a term to describe the very precise and intricate way of Honda engineering but in the typically human, plain-speaking way that is Honda's tone of voice."

Five months of preparation It took five months of production and design work before "Cog" was ready to shoot. Then the real work began. In the course of a week in a Paris studio, crews agonized through 605 takes. Every time, something went wrong -- a rolling gear missed its mark, the oil can poured too much or too little oil, the disembodied windshield wipers did not come to life with a squirt of liquid as planned.

Finally, on the 606th take, the amazing assembly worked.

Wieden+Kennedy staffers swear that no trick photography was used and that the final successful run-through was filmed in real time. The only voice in the ad is from Garrison Keillor, who intones at the end, "Isn't it nice when things just work?"

Truly.

Honda was so taken with the finished product it paid for a two-minute debut showing of the ad during the Brazilian Grand Prix.

The British press love the ad. " 'Cog' looks certain to become an advertising legend," wrote a reporter for the Telegraph of London.

For now anyway, the only way for U.S. audiences to see the ad is on the Internet. Honda has a different ad agency in the United States, and the chance of the company showing "Cog" remains uncertain. Jeff Manning: 503-294-7606 or jmanning@news.oregonian.com