They say, wake up and smell the coffee. So here's my humble request to the powers that may be at Honda Siel India and Honda Motor Co Japan – it's time for a shot of strong caffeine.
I'm talking about Honda's latest commercial on the Jazz X currently on air and it got me wondering –- why didn't you think about it before? Why did you have to show a commercial with a cactus plant, two lost souls and a completely confused ad campaign? Why did you just not use the famous KISS formula of marketing then and do a commercial like your current one instead? Why oh why?
It's easily one of the better auto commercials this year, and not because it does anything spectacularly. It just talks about the intangible factors of owning a product like the Jazz X and for all it's worth, intangibility in a booming market like ours works!
Don't even get me started on your 'diesel is good, but the fuel quality in India is poor' stance. Honda, you are a brilliant engineering company, something your founder based its principles on. You have found solutions to the most unlikely problems - the Honda Cub and Hero Honda CD100 for instance. You have gone where no other auto company in the recent past has gone and made private jets. The S2000 is a feat – it's taken until today for supercars like the Lexus LF-A and the Ferrari 458 Italia to get to those stratospheric 9000 rpm revlimit.
I don't care if you think the yen exchange rate is a problem and therefore you have to price your cars high. I do care that the Jazz is still priced a bit high. I don't care if you can't get the Civic Type-R since it is too much of a niche for India to make economic sense but I do care that you provide the City with more features. And a diesel engine. Do it right, Honda. You've done it right for so long in India and you seem to be tripping at this point. Let the competition introduce new products, don't worry so much of being out of the limelight. Get your product spec right, get your marketing strategy in order. Make us love your products the way we first loved them when the City first went on sale in 1998. Make us once again feel like there is nothing better than Honda for us Indians. Then sit back, relax and watch the cash registers start to ring!
