Honda's music for your ears

Finding new and innovative ways to promote the latest model is a constant challenge for car companies and few of these promotional campaigns are memorable. And if they are memorable — as Nissan found out with its Micra-spotting competition on Facebook — it can be for the wrong reason.

Hopefully for Honda, the importer's latest competition, which offers participants the chance to win a trip to Japan in July for the Fuji Rock Festival, will not backfire.

It's another example of using multimedia creativity for cut-through; Honda has harnessed the novelty of digital sampling online to draw youth attention to its Civic. Built on the company’s ‘symphony in motion’ strapline, the interactive Civic Sounds website is designed to dovetail with the company’s current TV campaign. Those ads use a soundtrack by Aussie band Bluejuice, drawing on a portfolio of 65 sounds sampled from the Civic – horn and interior warning beeps, revving sounds and the like. Here’s an example…

The web-based formula takes the idea a step further: it features an interactive sound palette from which you can create your own ‘Civic sounds’, err, music. You can tweak each sound for note length, add some reverb and create a rhythm track using percussive sounds like seatbelts clacking and car doors closing.

Bluejuice, Honda’s local product ambassadors for the Civic, will judge the entries and pick the winner, who will travel to Japan for the Fuji Rock Festival to be held near the base of Mt Fuji. Headline acts will be The Stone Roses and Radiohead. It's a simple enough competition for those musically inclined and there's an intro from Bluejuice by way of explanation.

To enter the competition or just have a play with the ‘instrument’, go to the competition page. The competition closes May 31.

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