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1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2011–2024
2:00 · 15M views · Jul 30, 2009
Honda's 2003 'Cog' commercial for the Accord, a two-minute Rube Goldberg chain reaction of car parts. It was filmed practically rather than with CGI.
Cited as an ad worth enjoying and as an example of practical effects so good they were mistaken for CGI.
3 comments from Hacker News
This is the type of thing that you wouldn't have done 10 years ago because noone would have found out about it. Reminds me of the Amazing Honda Accord commercial - the Cog... Rube Goldberg machine all done without CGI (5 months of pre-work, then 605 takes until they got to one that didn't screw up somewhere) this video They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be? Making of video: [LINK] Another good one that is similar in the sense that they went through a whole lot of trouble is the Sony Bravia commercial [LINK] They did a lot of work that they could've avoided with CGI, but where would the fun be? BTW, it seems Jelly Belly was in on the fun a little bit... [LINK] At the very least, I'd imagine that she didn't pay for the jelly beans
Advertising comes in many flavours, and different flavours work for different people. E.g. I find that most tech-y people I know who say "advertising doesn't work on me" are very susceptible to the "laundry-list of features" type of advertising that tricks them into thinking they're being rational and objective about their decision process, while not questioning why they should care about any of those features. For me, there's ads I actively enjoy watching. The old Cog[0] ad for the Honda Accord is one such case, as is the He-Man/Skeletor[1] ad for Money Supermarket (well, that and every other ad in that campaign). These work incredibly well on me as the brand awareness sort of marketing, and I'm sufficiently aware that I can correct for it — but I'm almost certainly unaware of my susceptibility to other sorts. 0. this video 1. [LINK]
You must not be a fan of this video then. (That commercial literally had Honda execs complimenting the team on the quality of their CGI when they first saw it. Needless to say they were blown away when they found out it was real.)