Some things, as the Guardian's Fashion supplement points out, should not be crossed in to. Namely they mean fashion designers on Twitter, but today I saw a campaign that made me look twice: Cars doing craft sites? I put on my sceptical face and investigated.
Honda's new "Made in Britain" campaign aims to focus on the British-made aspect of cars by focusing on other British-made goods. As they say, "Britain is buzzing with doers, makers, builders, bakers - creators of all kinds." And following in the steps of other campaigns, Honda's "Made in Britain" is trying to build a community around traditional, and traditionally female-orientated activities.
When Lurpack launched Bake Club early in 2010, the motivation towards the baking community was a little more immediately obvious, and Honda's effort is surprisingly good considering what seems to be a slightly tenuous link. They may make swish car adverts, but I was still sceptical, however it did make me wonder if we're seeing a trend towards buying cars from the UK during a recession, and whether this is a not-too-subtle knee-jerk reaction to it.
I was biased from the point the screen loaded. They've made their 'H' logo into a knitted logo and they've put it on a beige background, so all my opinions may shortly become worthless. But, at a stab of objectivity what I liked about the campaign was that, whilst a lot of brands seem pretty keen to do it, they're not forcing a brand new community onto their audience or demanding a massive change in behaviour. Building on a networks of crafters that already exists on sites such as Etsy or Folsky and also use Facebook, the page functions more as a communal hub with input from both the users and the brand.
What struck me was the level of effort put in by Honda. They're not only talking about upcoming events, such as an Etsy meetup I wasn't aware was going on, despite being an Etsy member, but Honda (or rather, Collective London, the PR team) are energetically heading to the meet-ups to get involved in the real crafting community. Of course this should be standard, but it's not always the case and it's positive to see some action going on, connecting not only online but also in the 'real world'.
One thing that does strike me is the simplicity. Never a bad thing in itself, but while it is a great resource, it would be fantastic to see a way to bring it offline or some cutesy 'knit a car' designs from Honda themselves would be adorable. I for one would knit a car and, swallowed up a fit of cuteness, blog to high heavens about it. (Dear Honda, please do this.)
To be honest, it doesn't make me want to rush out and find out more about the production of 130,000 Honda Jazz, Civics and CR-V models rolling off the Swindon production line. But it is a good step away from the TV ads that I remember with American voiceovers (and for a start, this ad has far too much sunshine to be considered British) with a completely different feel to it. This, might just be because of the appearance of beige, but more importantly, the "Made in Britain" campaign is just starting, it's got potential. It's very 'nice', but I wish there was a little more to it.