Ad Hit For Honda Long Before Super Bowl

It has become a ritual. Viewers tune in the Super Bowl to watch the commercials as much as they do to watch the big game, and a 30-second spot tomorrow in Super Bowl XLIX will cost $4 million. We’ll soon find out which ones stand out, but some from the past are etched in our memories. There’s Mean Joe Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers tossing his jersey to a young fan in a 1980 commercial for Coke, Apple going Orwellian in its “1984” spot from 1984, and Betty White getting tackled in 2010 for Snickers.

Before the Super Bowl began in 1967, though, sponsors looked to other TV events to get their message across, and that’s what Honda did in 1964. It brought its “You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda” campaign to a mass audience on the Academy Awards telecast.

According to Honda’s website,the process began two years earlier. Honda was selling 40,000 motorcycles annually in the U.S. and had 750 dealers, more than any competitor. American Honda’s general manager Kihachiro Kawashima then raised the sales goal five-fold to 200,000 units in 1963, knowing the target wasn’t unreasonable if the product name became better known.

The U.S. agency Grey Advertising proposed the “Nicest People” slogan for a campaign that would be used in 11 states in the West. It showed “respectable members of society” riding Honda 50s in various settings. The campaign was a success, so Grey upped the ante and proposed running national commercials in the Academy Awards telecast, which attracted 70 to 80 percent of all TV viewers at the time.

The cost was $300,000 for two, 90-second spots; “an outrageous price that would wipe out the revenue from about 1,200 Honda 50s,” according to Honda’s history. Kawashima hesitated but gave the go-ahead. “When I heard they wanted $300,000, I had serious reason to pause and think about it,” Kawashima said, looking back at the plan. He then recalled the thinking of Honda’s senior managing partner Takeo Fujisawa. “Fujisawa had always told me that great opportunities weren’t so easy to come by. So, I decided to go for it. ‘Let’s do it,’ I said. But to be honest, I was pretty nervous.”

The spot became an instant hit and Honda’s “You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda” slogan became one of the most memorable in advertising history.

Kihachiro Kawashima, left, and Takeo Fujisawa, second from right

“I really think business is a battle that must be fought with a comprehensive array of forces,” said Kawashima philosophically. “First, you need to have great products. Then, you need an organization that is appropriate for the product, and people who can make the organization work. In that respect, I was blessed with great products and a wonderful staff. But also, I think the driving force was Honda’s decision to build its own sales network. Our direct involvement with the retailers led to the success of our American sales network and sales campaign.”

Here’s a “Nicest People” spot from 1966: