STUPID/SMART
The Banger Blog · a Stupid/Smart breakdown
Classic · 2014

Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1989

Honda · Dentsu Tokyo

From Honda Greece.

The insight

Honda's engineering heritage is a set of facts in an archive, and facts in an archive move nobody.

The idea

Take the telemetry Honda recorded from Senna's 1989 Suzuka lap and replay it on the empty real circuit as sound and light.

The Stupid/Smart of it

Stupid: Building a campaign on a driver who died, and betting that reverence rather than exploitation is how it reads.

Smart: Resurrecting a dead driver from a data file sounds ghoulish, until you hear it and realise the data is the only thing left of that lap.

Why it works

Only Honda held that telemetry, so no other brand could physically have made this.

It is a genuine world-first with a technical story, so it gets covered as engineering news, not advertising.

The magic

Leaving the track empty. The temptation was to put a car on it; the absence is what makes it a ghost rather than a re-enactment.

Craft-poweredIt dies when described. It only exists once made. Has to be seen to work.

Results

1989lap year, replayed on the real circuit
15Cannes prizes across 8 categories
0cars on the track

Recognition

Cannes Lions 2014: Grand Prix, Titanium & Integrated.
15 prizes across eight categories at the 61st festival, including Gold and Silver in Promo & Activation.
Also a One Show winner.

Who made it

Client: Honda Motor (Internavi)
Agency: Dentsu, Tokyo
Technical production: Rhizomatiks
Source data: telemetry captured by Honda's Internavi system during Ayrton Senna's 1989 qualifying lap at Suzuka
The installation: LED light fixtures and speakers along the real circuit, replaying the lap as sound and light with no car present

The way in

The devices behind this one, from our library of ways in:

Make the proof the entertainmentMake the hero an object, not a person

Sources: Honda Global, Grand Prix announcement · Campaign Asia, Titanium Grand Prix · Fast Company, Honda tops Titanium · The Work / Lions archive entry

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