Everything wrong with that Honda meteorite ad
For the record, Dr Mumbo is aware that ads aren’t real.
Not least when they come from Honda, whose last memorable effort involved a talking dog called Terry.
And there is also an immutable law that says journalists are never portrayed accurately on screen. And Honda’s new sci-fi spectacular from Leo Burnett Melbourne certainly contributes to that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkfB2wAqJTw
Every time that ad airs, Dr Mumbo feels a great disturbance, as if millions hundreds of journos are suddenly crying out.
So allow Dr Mumbo to offer a shot-by-shot assessment of everything that all right-thinking journos should hate about the ad…
00.00
Our story begins with our plucky Channel 8 heroine CJ, who’s covering a dog show for a live bulletin from some idyllic rural location.
For the record, animal shows are an honourable part of the junior journo training path, so let no more be said against the concept. It’s not a bad shot, with a bustling backdrop and the reporter draped in a shih tzu for maximum hilarity. How the dogs are levitating into the left and right of the shot doesn’t matter right now.
00.02
They’ve even brought a monitor offering a live feed of what’s going on in the studio. Which seems a bit much for a quick, live two-way. Dr Mumbo wonders where the satellite dish is. Clearly this is one well-resourced team.
00.03
But what the hell is the camera guy doing? He’s staring at his phone and isn’t even monitoring his shot. He hasn’t noticed that a female hipster is about to wander into the picture.
00.05
The studio host, who we’ll later discover is called Glen, offers up a lame pun about the ‘poop scoop’ at the dog show.
Scoop? Gerrit?
CJ’s having none of it. The last time Dr Mumbo came across an eye roll this dramatic is was Van Badham during Mark Latham’s bizarre feminism debate with Andrew O’Keefe.
But it’s not a great look when your network’s camera is pointing at you. It makes it look like you think the whole thing is a little beneath you, CJ.
Is it, CJ? Are you better than that?
00.06
Hang on, we’re in a rural idyll. What the hell are all those half built skyscrapers doing?
And if this is a metro bulletin, what the hell are they crossing to a dog show for anyway?
Oh yes, and the fireball streaking across the sky? Lucky CJ looked up.
00.08
The size of that fireball can only mean one thing. Millions of people are going to die. An ambitious smile crosses CJ’s face.
00.09
She dumps the shih tzu into the hands of the hipster. The hipster has a clipboard so she must be the producer. Dr Mumbo feels for her. Working with CJ must be unbearable.
In the background, the camera guy fails to point his camera at the sky. The hipster producer is juggling the dog and doesn’t notice.
00.11
Instead of filming the fireball and broadcasting it live to Channel 8’s long suffering viewers, they’ve all inexplicably jumped into their Honda Civic. Which is parked underneath a massive overpass, the perfect spot to hold a dog show.
00.13
As CJ demonstrates the reversing camera, “You’ve stolen a shih tzu,” complains the hipster producer, who actually had it last.
00.15
The camera guy tells CJ where to go, but he’s still not filming.
00.16
Finally, the sleepyheads back at Channel 8 cut live to the car, which is now on a suspiciously empty freeway, considering the monitor said it was 8.35am.
Weirdly, the fireball, which science tells us to expect to fly past at 257,000kph, has fallen behind the Honda.
00.19
“Are we up? asks CJ in a not-very-professional way of beginning the biggest moment of her television career.
Which isn’t entirely her fault, as she’s trying to drive while doing a piece to camera. Doesn’t she know that the Pedestrians Council of Australia is bound to complain to the Ad Standards Board about that?
00.21
“It’s heading saarf,” she tells viewers in a piece-to-camera-while-driving at a speed that even Chris Evans would be ashamed of.
It’s hard to tell why the studio is even bothering to cross to the car when they’ve also got a perfectly good live shot of the fireball to show viewers.
00.22
Now they’re suddenly in the bush. And they’re still ahead of the 257,000 km/h fireball.
00.23
The meteorite strikes land dead ahead, with an impact equivalent to a 1 million megaton bomb. In a few seconds, everything within five miles will be completely flattened. Soon the shock wave will devastate most of the eastern side of Australia. In the weeks that follow a cloud of dust will snuff out the sun around the world. The planet will be thrown into a new ice age. Humanity will end.
00.24
CJ braces bravely while the cameraman and cowardly hipster flinch. In a fraction of a second they will be evaporated.
00.25
They’re doomed. Just look at that mushroom cloud they’re driving towards.
00.27
The deadly blast wave hits. But CJ steers around it while the camera guy whimpers.
00:31
Meteorites rain down around the magic car, which doesn’t even get dusty.
00.32
They come across a shocked survivor badly in need of help. They ignore his pleas and drive on. CJ is ambitious for a better shot.
00.35
By the look of all those flattened trees, the landscape has been utterly destroyed.
This can only mean one thing. CJ and her team are dead. But they don’t realise.
00.37
Their spirits, in their ghost car, approach the giant smoking crater that has ended human life upon earth.
00.38
Suddenly Ghost CJ has a camera of her own. She films precisely the same scene from precisely the same angle as her cameraman.
The ghost hipster producer prepares to throw the dog into the volcano as a sacrifice to the gods to be allowed back into the land of the living.
00.42
CJ scrambles into the crater
00:45
Camera still in hand, CJ’s experience in purgatory continues. Now she’s been instantaneously transported into the studio. A stressed looking floor manager – who must also have died in the cataclysm – takes her camera from her.
00:50
The tables have turned. Now CJ is anchoring the show.
00.52
And Glen, on an expensive network talent contract, is at the dog show. Despite the devastation that occurred just up the road, the dog show is still going. Dr Mumbo can’t help but question the news values of the show’s executive producer.
00.55
CJ, now wearing an earpiece, looks smug
But it’s only because she doesn’t know she’s dead.
Hey! That’s miiiiine!!!
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This piece should be called “Everything wrong with Mumbrella articles”
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I wonder how the 30 seconds ad will look like. I’ll be sticking to Mazda, more zoom zoom less boom boom.
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I laughed when I saw the ad and am laughing now. I think secretly you like this ad – as we all do when our respective professions are glamorised on the silver screen. BTW – it’s a dream sequence – but you knew that already.
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Hi Gezza,
Secretly I like a lot about this ad.
The production levels are excellent. The sound design is superb (best appreciated via headphones). So is the editing. And of course it’s beautifully shot.
It’s also actually very well written too (hell, there’s even foreshadowing right at the start of how it’s going to end.) And unlike many (most) ads, there’s actually a big idea in here.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
it’s an ad…
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I love the ad – that girl is hot so I want buy a Honda right? 🙂
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Given the vanilla on tv creativity should be being encouraged, not picked apart.
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I just wanna see the car.
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Right, Tim.
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Lets seeyour honda ad Tim….
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Soooo picky. Classic take of showboating for a promotion. Extremely worthy.
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This is a microcosm for all that’s wrong with ATL.
Nothing to do with the product.
Will have no sales impact.
Just a self-indulgent piece of ‘art’ for creatives and media types.
Will probably win loads of awards.
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That was a great read Tim.
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Can’t stand ads that assume the public will be interested enough to go online and “follow the rest of the story”. Seriously, just write a great ending. Best you can hope for after a car ad is that people will add it to their consideration set and find out how it stacks up against it’s competitors on-line.
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Agree, so sick of the negativity of everything in Mumbrella. It’s getting boring. Why not celebrate the creativity and the fact that it’s not the same as all the other boring car ads on tv. At least they are doing something different! And it’s entertaining, which is what good content is all about. Dr Mumbo needs to prescribe some happy meds, cos your making everyone sick at the moment!
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Hilarious. Great read.
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Isn’t Dr Mumbo supposed to be a piss take anyways
Lighten up people
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“… right-thinking journos …”
Isn’t that an oxymoron?
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Bruce Almighty copycat
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FYI, from someone who shows dogs – specifically afghan hounds – the dogs aren’t levitating on either side of the screen, they’re standing on grooming tables.
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I don’t mind the ad, just don’t know why the lead actress is wearing Renault logo ear rings
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Ha ha its just a ffffing ad,
jesus get a life , maybe turn the tv off instead ?
‘ Cj ‘ however is serious babe , amazing eyes , seen her somewhere before though anyone know her past work or who she is ?
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Still don’t get it.
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