At the conclusion of the already acclaimed U.K. spot for the Honda Accord titled "Cog," the voiceover states, "Isn’t it nice when things just work?" The same could be said for car commercials. With some notable exceptions, the formula for automobile advertising is predictable: a car speeds down a curvy road to trendy music with the spot ending on a voiceover about 0% down APR financing. So when a car ad is elevated to a higher level (i.e.: it has a concept), kudos are in order for the creative minds behind it.
Meet Ben Walker and Matt Gooden. They are, respectively, copywriter and art director at Wieden + Kennedy (W+K), London, and are the ones who came up with the idea for the two-minute long "Cog." The artisans have been with W+K for a year and a half, but have been working as partners for 13 years, first at Leo Burnett, then at TBWA, both in London. The team is the first to admit that it shares credit for "Cog" with director Antoine Bardou-Jacquet of Partizan Midi Minuit, Paris, and W+K creative directors Tony Davidson and Kim Papworth, and producer Rob Steiner, plus many other people. But it is Gooden and Walker who first conceived of an innovative solution to a brief that pretty much summed up what seemingly every car manufacturer wants from its advertising: A story about engineering excellence.
The two-minute long "Cog," which was recognized in SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See" gallery (5/9, p.11), is a grown-up and far more complex version of the British board game Mousetrap, where one item set in motion creates a subsequent chain reaction. The spot opens on a transmission ball bearing rolling on a wooden surface. It gently taps a synchro hub, which in turn rolls forward hitting a gear wheel cog that falls to the floor onto a camshaft and pulley wheel. From there the progression grows more and more elaborate as an assemblage of car parts—the front hood, radiator, water pump, wheels, brake discs, and countless smaller pieces—fluidly react to each other, creating exactly what Honda was looking for: a demonstration of pure, engineering excellence. At the conclusion of "Cog," we see the finished product: a shiny Accord rolling down a slight incline setting off the ad’s last trick—a banner drops bearing the word "Accord." The tag follows, "Honda. The Power of Dreams."
"We started with the words, ‘beautiful, functional and well engineered’ and thought it would be nice to emulate that with parts from the car," explains Walker.
Adds Gooden: "Creating a chain reaction from car parts was a great way to show how beautiful they are and how clever the engineers are."
The idea also had to do with the personality of the company. Honda has only just started to become a well-known brand in the U.K., and W+K had cast the company as one that was human, warm and playful. The concept of a chain reaction brought together several of those voices.
TESTING, TESTING
It’s difficult to convey in words the amazing visual spectacle that is "Cog," but explaining what went into it might help the reader get there. To sell the idea to Honda, Gooden and Walker put together a mood tape that consisted of cuts from movies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Home Alone and footage taken from lesser-known chain reaction enthusiasts. Then the team turned to director Bardou-Jacquet to help realize the vision.
Walker explains that Bardou-Jacquet had a music video on his reel for Alex Gopher called "The Child" that won them over. The clip is about a woman giving birth to a child in the middle of a busy city street, but the entire story is told with type. For instance, a taxi driving down the street was made up of the word "taxi" and where there were buildings, text read "building." "The thought and attention to detail that went into that video was amazing," recalls Gooden. "We could tell from his reel that he’s a problem solver and his solutions were witty and human as well," adds Walker. Also appealing was the fact that Bardou-Jacquet had put together a team of specialists for the Honda job, including a sculptor, a photographer, a Honda mechanic, a welder, and an engineer. Mono-monikered Flame artist Barnsley from The Mill, London, served as special effects supervisor on the shoot.
After a director and a treatment were in place, Honda gave W+K money to do a one-minute test that took about a month. "They wanted us to prove to them that we could do it and we also wanted to prove it to ourselves," relates Gooden. "When Honda finally bought the idea we thought, ‘Shit! We’ve actually got to make this thing happen. It was very exciting," he recalls.
What followed next was three solid months of testing in Paris, where Walker and Gooden would visit once or twice a week to pitch in ideas. When the time came to shoot "Cog," it required 600 takes, shot over the course of five days in a Paris studio. Because a space didn’t exist that was long enough to house the full length of the chain reaction, the spot was shot in two pieces that Barnsley later knitted together in post.
Despite the enormity of what needed to be achieved in those five days of shooting, Walker told SHOOT that the vibe on the set was very relaxed. "Antoine doesn’t start screaming and shouting," he notes. "There were obviously slightly panicky times because the hardest thing was catching what we’d done on film and it became obvious on the shoot that even if we did a pass that was completely right, the camera might not get it. So it was vital that everyone was concentrating really hard at all times."
Both Walker and Gooden admitted to fleeting moments of doubt. "We were nervous the first couple of weeks of testing because they weren’t particularly fruitful and we were thinking ‘Can we really do this?’ " Walker relates.
"Antoine is supremely confident," adds Gooden, "which kind of rubs off on you. Plus, fear is a great motivator."
Now that "Cog" is on the air, Walker and Gooden are a little shocked by the overwhelmingly positive reaction it’s received—perhaps a testament to the fact that when you’re close to a job, you can’t see it anymore. "The most pleasing response has been from people outside the industry, from laymen and people who just like watching football," says Walker. "I had no idea it was that powerful."
