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The Honda Experiment

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Posted by Eliza Williams, 23 November 2011, 10:35    Permalink    Comments (15)

Wieden + Kennedy London's latest campaign for Honda, titled The Experiment, is an online game that asks players to create a chain reaction on screen by placing a set of pop-up windows in the correct sequence...

The campaign is reminiscent of the Honda Cog ad from 2003, where a series of car parts were used to create a giant Rube Goldberg-esque chain reaction, to emphasise the complex engineering inside the Honda Accord. Here, the audience become the engineers, and are encouraged to experiment with moving the pop-ups around the screen until the correct chain is achieved. The film below shows how it works:

There are six levels to the game, and when these are completed, players get the opportunity to create their own chains to challenge their friends with. The game is best played using either Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers, and was created in collaboration with B-Reel, the production company behind the Wilderness Downtown site for Arcade Fire, which also had fun with pop-ups.

Play the game at experimentgame.com, or find out more about it on the Honda blog here. And if you want to find out more about how the campaign was made, simply watch the making-of film below:

Credits:
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy London
Creatives: Lisa Jelliffe, Kirsten Rutherford
Producer: Dominic Tunon
Creative directors: Chris Groom, Sam Heath
Interactive creative directors: Gavin Gordon-Rogers, Andy Cameron
Designer: Chris Welsby
Creative technologist: Mike Tucker
Executive creative directors: Tony Davidson, Kim Papworth
Production company- B-Reel
Music: human

15 Comments

A really innovative project - not to mention ambitious, given the newness of HTML5 and difficulties associated with pop-up windows.
Good to see projects like this pushing forward..
Tom
2011-11-23 11:07:57

Nice work, well done!
SWEE
2011-11-23 11:10:33

Great when such free reign ideas come together and really work in a creative design environment
applause
2011-11-23 11:30:56

I can't be bothered to play it but it does look really good. As Tom said, very ambitious and great that interesting and engaging projects like these actually see the light of day.
Matt
2011-11-23 11:50:57

@Matt Its probably not all that engaging if you can't be bothered to play it! I agree though. I like hearing about and seeing stuff like this but it seems a chore to go and load it up and mess about with it!!

Not taking anything away from it. The video above shows how clever an idea it is.
Ricky
2011-11-23 12:51:53

Oh dear, what a waste of money! Very tenuous. As said above I couldn't be bothered. I lost interest after 2 seconds. All to flog a car thats just like every other car on sale. Great use of money guys.
Rob
2011-11-23 12:56:00

Yeah cred though to them for taking the cog concept into interactive and web
christian
2011-11-23 14:37:20

I couldn't actually get this to work but looking at the footage, it does seem well-crafted.

Personally I'm a bit tired of the pop-up resurgence; feels like a one-time gimmick that's run its course. Grievances aside, I like the idea - it reminds me of an old DOS game I used to play as a kid in which you experiment with different objects/tools to solve puzzles. Tried searching for the aforementioned game but no joy, hopefully someone here knows!
Matt
2011-11-23 16:00:01

worked for me! amazed!

@Matt are you talking about The Incredible Machine?
Sal
2011-11-23 16:36:55

@matt- do you mean the incredible machine? ;)
Clever idea and I like the tech. Especially the create your own level part at the end- need a bit more practice to create one I'm pleased with though!
Helen
2011-11-23 17:30:32

Yes! Turns out it was the first in the series. Thanks both of you, that made my day.
Matt
2011-11-23 17:39:01

I could not get it to work on my pc, its rather slow. The screenshots look good though, will have to give it a try when i get home from work.
Alex
2011-11-24 09:17:22

works on chrome lovely, great fun, well done. I now want to play the game matt mentioned
johnjohn
2011-11-24 12:32:31

And it's worth mentioning "Der Lauf der Dinge" by Peter Fischli and David Weiss (can be seen on Vimeo)
as I imagine the inspiration for the Cog advertisement. It's interesting to see the late 80's low-fi version next to the hi-gloss sheen of the TV advert and of course the following copyright dispute with Honda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Things_Go
Chris
2011-11-24 16:00:18

Loving this! Highly addictive & the first branded game I've ever found myself liking. Top marks Honda & Be-Reel.
DigiBritain.co.uk
2011-11-25 06:29:57

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