Honda's F1 dream
Posted by Michael Harvey at 11:00AM on Monday 26 February, 2007 14 Comments
Imagine you're the global CEO of one of, say, McLaren's F1 sponsors.
The only thing bigger than your remuneration package is your ego. You have, consequently, flown in (privately, on the corporate Gulfstream V, natch) 300 of your closest friends and business associates to Melbourne for the first Grand Prix of the season.
They're whisked from the private air lounge direct to the track and, once there, Ron Dennis and his team of quality up-suckers have thought of everything. Your name/your company's name is everywhere because that's the F1 way of doing things. Hell, they've even put your name all over the loo roll (or was that your corporate rival's name - they're such cards these F1 bods).
Logos on the canapés, the champagne, the snug little Lycra numbers the 'PR' girls are wearing, the soles of the shoes (not a joke, ladies and gents, McLaren does indeed apply corporate slogans on the undersides of the shoes it obliges its employees to wear). Hell, the last time things were this aligned, Albert Speer was running the show.
By the time first practice starts you're ready to sign on for another gazillion. Can you imagine anything bigger than this? You've reached your career orbit's apogee. You have arrived. The whole world will know your name, such is your wealth.
And then the Honda rolls into view.
"Ron, what's that car? Where are all its sponsors? What is 'myearthdream.com'?"
"Oh," says Ron. "That's what you do when you don't have any sponsors."
"But they do have sponsors," you say. You saw that sexy Jenson Button and his overalls were covered in sponsors. And the trucks.
"Well actually," says Ron, shuffling uncomfortably now, "Honda wondered why it was investing so much to advertise other people's products and wondered whether it might not do something a little more worthwhile with the 100 million eyeballs that witness each GP. Something environmental. Something that people watching might think vaguely altruistic... something anti-corp-a-rate..."
Oh boy, there goes the knighthood. Do you feel like the big, smug, 80s shit now...
I don't know about you, but I'm blown away by myearthdream.com, the joint vision of Honda and 'pop-svengali' Simon Fuller.
It's not just the sheer chutzpah of fomenting an environmental debate on the back of a machine that does 3mpg (and inspired by a man who drives a Maybach). I love the fact that myearthdream forces audiences to confront the issue and acknowledge the fact that technology may have many of the answers.
Nor is it just the invisible way it joins engineering to research to technology to environmental solutions to... Honda.
Honda's an odd company. So clever, yet so guilty of hiding its light under a bushel. It's like BMW without the engorged genitals.
Honda just about invented fuel economy in the US after Yom Kippur. It had hybrids on the streets before Toyota. It will almost certainly beat everyone to marketing a hydrogen fuel cell.
Did you ever string all that together? Me neither. Hats off to the man who introduced Baby to Posh to Ginger to the other two.
Most of all I love the fact that it totally destroys the F1 sponsorship model. Only the deepest cynic would suggest the board of Honda don't care about the world their grandkids will inhabit (and talking of cynics, Fuller has, by the way, co-opted Greenpeace into backing the initiative).
So where does that leave the high-rolling sponsors with their names in lights all over the McLarens and Renaults and Ferraris and Red Bulls?
Embarrased? I would think so. Considering their future investment? Possibly. Is this a bad thing? As fans we all know it's the corporate dollar that's stolen the souls of our heroes.
So, I'm struggling to see the downside. And if Honda sells some more cars of the back of it, do you really care? Not me, and chances are they'll be the 'right' ones too.
We've been trying to get the industry to fight the environmental lobby from the front foot for three years now. Jenson and Rubens' earth cars are just the start of it.
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14 Comments for "Honda's F1 dream"
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Fascinating, deeply fascinating. Bold and original undoubtedly, and the idea that Honda is attempting to build a community of environmental do-gooders using the phenomenal power of F1's marketing reach is genius.
I do have a concern though. A big one. Honda simply must carry this idea through. The modern Wii generation of recyclers and cyclists are naturally suspicious of bold, seemingly brand-aggrandising gestures - especially when it concerns the environment.Action needs to follow, otherwise the cynics will smugly watch this dissolve into another simple marketing exercise.Well done Honda! This really shows that money should not always be the first thing on everyone's agenda and that the earth should always be respected and cared for!!
The earth-friendly Honda is a nice move, but will probably be useless. The problem that doesn't go away is that developing countries like China and India, as well as the industrious West, still contribute millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
These are the places with the biggest problem and the biggest opportunity to cut down on CO2 emissions.Bold and different are a few of the words that I first thought of when I saw the video and the blog.
It's kind of ironic as mentioned before, because they're using one of the thirstiest cars on the planet to advertise their plans to reduce global warming.You're wrong, sadly. All this car represents is a bad eye for design, and the inability of Honda to land any decent paying sponsors. Overall sponsorship doesn't equal decent.
A breath of fresh air. The identity of a team is important. Ferrari will always be red etc, and sponsors want their colours on their cars. McLaren have taken branding too seriously for a long time and ended up looking too corporate. At least Red Bull is about being fun. So well done Honda for being different.
With this change of direction, we might even get a new breed of F1 fan. Being green is good for business, so at last it is coming to F1. And this time NASCAR didn't get there first. Yippee!!Ignoring all the issues regarding whether sponsors should be on a car or not, I think the greatest thing Honda have achieved here is placing a car on the F1 grid with a radically different livery from the rest. The '06 season had far to many teams in similiar liveries.
However if Honda want to be kind to the environment and recycle their car at the end of the season, I will gladly take it of their hands for nipping to the shops and back!The car looks stunning and radical, it's beautiful really. I just feel bad for the guys in the paint shop, and considering how often an F1 car crashes or changes shape, Honda F1's biggest bill will probably not be appointed to the aero department this year...
Both hideous and hypocritical.
I think this is a HUGE step in the right direction, not just for F1, but for all racing. I think we've all gotten tired of the hideous amounts of advertising that goes on the cars, and even though the Vodafone McLaren looks fabulous - and I always loved the Marlboro logo on Schumacher - I think an F1 car painted without sponsors is just inspired.
Good for Honda for highlighting green issues in such a prominent way. Shame then that it ended production of the Insight last year, which was one of the world's most fuel-efficient production cars. Let's hope that they back up their green F1 advert by bringing out a (four-seater) Honda Insight II!
I find Honda's new livery not only a statement in global awareness/issues, but a step into a new era of F1. Possibly one where the gas guzzling monster engines, that hurl these cars into warp speed, are not guzzling at all.
On a different perspective, I have never really enjoyed the visuals of sponsors engulfing every millimetre found on F1 cars, especially that of the more recent paint schemes. My eyes hurt. I am not sure what I am really looking at anymore!I hope more teams follow in Honda's footsteps.F1, as with all motorsport, has always been a conduit for developments which will eventually make it into mainstream production.
This colour scheme, however attractive and fresh, does nothing to make me want to go green (apart from pledge for a pixel so I can tell my mates I too have my name on a F1 grid). As for the money they have lost from sponsorship, let's hope some of the lesser teams get a share from other sponsors, and help make them in turn more successful. That said, at the end of the day this scheme has worked. How many other cars' paint schemes for this season have been debated so hotly? And just think of all the press coverage Honda has got for free over the last few days, and will continue to get during the season on the back of this!!I can't agree. Advertising provides the cash F1 teams need in order to compete; that means if they don't get value for money, they'll go elsewhere. And in straightforward terms, Honda's sponsors just aren't getting value for money here.
As soon as the PR value dwindles (which it will within a couple of races), they'll realise they've been had. Countless millions watch F1; they glaze over when the ads come on, so the marketing value of this car isn't really that high. A tiny percentage of the sport's audience might log on to the website, but surely not enough to make the sums add up for IBM, Fila, Universal et al.The reason this has happened is because everybody wants to appear to be the company who can save the climate. In isolation, an expensive Honda hybrid car is no more capable of that than an IBM computer or a pair of Fila trainers. This is about fashion, not global warming.