SOCAL HONDA BIG GAME ADS
AGENCY: SECRET WEAPON “Rick/DICK sittig’s agency”
ROLES: ACD, ART DIRECTOR, WRITER, ILLUSTRATOR
The SoCal Honda Dealers don’t have $5 million for a Big Game spot, so we had to be smart with every dollar.
One year, we gave free Uber rides on the deadliest night for driving. Another, we skipped a game ad entirely but still got everyone talking by turning ad cliches into a donation game—raising over $300K for the Boys & Girls Clubs of SoCal.
We ran a nearly silent ad that was actually a secret scavenger hunt, drawing 20,000 nominations for someone deserving of a new car. We awarded the worst commute in SoCal, let people tackle our mascot to erase student debt, and had high school coaches catch money balls from ex-NFL (& USC) QB Mark Sanchez.
Every time, we made headlines, earned thousands in free media and proved you don’t need a Super Bowl sized budget to win the Big Game.
UBER - 2016
8816 rides home
〰️
73,605 miles driven
〰️
1.1 Million social media positive impressions
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8816 rides home 〰️ 73,605 miles driven 〰️ 1.1 Million social media positive impressions 〰️
Helpful bowl - 2017
PRESS IN ADWEEK
1,011% WEBSITE VIEWS
404% social engagement
54 million total impressions
Helpful Hunt - 2018
OVER 4,000 submissions in the first hour
230,000 site visits
$275,000 of earned media
RECEIVED COVERAGE ON EVERY
NETWORK NEWS OUTLET IN SOCAL
A COUPLE OF THE WINNERS
We made seven mini-docs, each featuring a real person who had no idea they were about to get a new car. Normally, a brand might feel out of place telling these stories—but in this campaign, we didn’t. They did. And to make it even more special, we let the nominators hand over the keys themselves.
WORST COMMUTE - 2019
This campaign tapped into something every Angeleno loves—complaining about traffic. But with a better ride, maybe the “worst commute” wouldn’t be so bad after all.
A BAD hard drive ate my site, but we let people post theirs into a digital traffic jam. We picked three HORRIBLE COMMUTES POST GAME, below is a comp.
DO YOU HAVE THE WORST COMMUTE?
We opened it up after the spot ran and picked three more horrible commutes, and gave them new hybrid cars in the end. Those videos were rough, because I had to go on the commutes with them haha.
So instead of showing those videos we made, I’ll show some of the press coverage we received.
THE LAST TWO
We were filming the remaining winners for Tackle Your Student Debt when the pandemic hit.
The Sanchez spot was what it was—but hey, we still got some nice press out of it.
