Honda's Plan To Cut Clutter: Buy All Available Ad Space On Sony Sites
This story was written by David Kaplan.
These are tougher times for car companies, but Honda feels it's only more necessary to ramp up its digital advertising. The company hopes that a big, splashy campaign across all online and mobile ad space held by Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures Television will do the trick of at least getting consumers' attention. WSJ calls the $500,000 deal "unprecedented," saying that while it's not unusual for a marketer to buy all the ad placements tied to a single site or TV show, taking over all placements on Sony's mobile and online entertainment and partner sites is something differently entirely.
-- Cutting clutter: The campaign for the Honda Fit kicks off today. The ads are targeting urbanites who might be looking for a small, fuel-efficient cars and will appear on Sony Pictures' video site Crackle, on sites and music videos related to record label Sony BMG and Sony-created programming that run on sites outside the company, including MySpace and Facebook, YouTube, Hulu, and virtual community Gaia Online. Sony also arranged placement on mobile networks it partners with, such as Sprint (NYSE: S) and AT&T (NYSE: T). Edmund Purcell, VP and interactive management supervisor at Honda's ad agency RPA, tells WSJ that the plan was designed to break through the clutter of thousands of banners other online ads that web users are regularly exposed to. "We are not just throwing up a banner that could be passed over," he says. Sony is betting heavily on Honda's successthough how it defines success in this case wasn't made clearand plans to strike similar blanket deals with other marketers.
By David Kaplan