Honda creates the hybrid you can feel

In the cliché-ridden car ad genre it can be hard to find a new way to impart the message that a motor is a smooth drive. This campaign for Honda’s new CR-V Hybrid nails it with a classy film created by Sid Lee Paris and Hakuhodo West and directed by Manu Cossu through Iconoclast.

With the emphasis on sensations, The Hybrid You Can Feel marries actual testimonies from test drivers to a series of images that conjure the feelings produced while behind the wheel. “It’s like I can drive further than the horizon,” says one, as images of far horizons whizz by. A quote highlighting the car’s quietness “it goes…. Sshhhhhh” is illustrated by a giant, undulating bubble floating silently though a forest.

Six months before the launch of the CR-V Hybrid in Europe, agencies Sid Lee Paris and Hakuhodo West invited five Honda fans from five different countries – Christophe (France), Katharine (UK), Pierre (Germany), Javier (Spain) and Francesca (Italy), to experience the car for themselves, recording their thoughts and emotional reactions to create the film.