Pizazz, passion, props win Acura ad account

LOS ANGELES -- With a flashy and well researched pitch, Mullen Advertising won American Honda's Acura account over incumbent RPA and others by promising to focus Acura's message and inject more emotion into its ads.

Mullen offered "wicked-awesome creative" and a sharp focus on what has been missing from Acura's marketing, Mike Accavitti, American Honda chief marketing officer, told Automotive News.

RPA retained the Honda brand account but is under orders to provide a more consistent message.

To win the Acura business, Mullen produced a barrage of 26 videos -- a mix of ad concepts, "brand essence" videos, campaign outlines and overviews. One was a manifesto called "It's Time to Stop Wandering," a reference to Acura's marketing inconsistency since its 1986 launch.

Alex Leikikh (LAY'-kee), Mullen's 40-year-old president, said the agency was given "a very clear message from Acura, in terms of what the designers and engineers wanted to do with the brand."

To boost the wow factor, Mullen rolled out a blockbuster diorama. The 4-by-8-foot scale model of a proposed commercial shoot, created by a Hollywood pro, had moving parts that included an automated point-of-view camera that moved among the cars to show how a commercial would be shot.

RPA handled the creative and media-buying business for both brands before the three-month agency review that started with 20 agencies. Although RPA held onto Honda account, Accavitti made clear he wants a fresh approach.

"We got good stuff from RPA," he said. "I am proud of the [Matthew Broderick] Super Bowl campaign we did. If we could make everything that impactful and awesome and cool, that would be great. But we weren't getting that."

Ad men Gerry Rubin and Larry Postaer set up an agency and won the Honda account in 1986. Rubin Postaer and Associates, later renamed RPA, was a key player in the rise of the brand. Its "Art Gallery" commercial -- in which a Honda Accord, hung wheels-to-the-wall, captivates a passerby who eventually drives it away in defiance of gravity -- helped the Accord become America's best-selling car in 1989.

In 1992, RPA's focus groups discovered that some consumers were unwilling to buy Japanese cars unless they were built in America. Americans didn't know Honda made Accords and Civics in Ohio. Honda quickly shifted its ad focus, and sales began to soar.

But the partnership was threatened in December when American Honda threw its $900 million U.S. creative and media accounts into review for both Honda and Acura.

The multicultural advertising accounts were not included in the review.

Accavitti said: "RPA knew they could get knocked out at any time," but added that the agency's recent work and its institutional knowledge allowed RPA to retain the Honda business.

As for the Acura account, Accavitti described the work by Mullen as filling "the emotional component" that had been missing.

"Luxury is an emotional purchase," he said. "When Mullen showed their stuff, I felt something. They knocked it out of the park. I told them, 'You guys are there.'"

Although Mullen didn't have an auto account, Honda marketers were impressed by the level of automotive experience among the agency's executives.

Leikikh was on the BMW account with Fallon. Chief Creative Officer Mark Wenneker worked on Saturn, Hyundai and Saab accounts at various agencies. Chief Strategy Officer Kristen Cavallo helped create VW's "Drivers Wanted" campaign at Arnold and was at Mullen when it had the BMW account in the 1990s. Also on staff are several ex-Modernista creatives who worked the Cadillac and Hummer accounts, and some Arnold/VW veterans.

Acura's branding has been all over the map since 1986, starting with "Precision Crafted Performance," shifting to "Some Things Are Worth The Price," then "The True Definition of Luxury...Yours," followed by, simply, "Advance."

Mullen will be Acura's fourth agency since its launch, although RPA has had the account since 1999.

While seeking a new creative direction, Mullen agreed with Acura's "Man-Machine Synergy" product philosophy, which highlights technology as a way to make drivers better.

"We decided to embrace it, not fight it," Leikikh said. "You will see it tonally and visually in our work."

Accavitti said he was impressed by the thoroughness of Mullen's research and the depth of its interviews with Acura designers, engineers, customers and dealers.

"We have these great luxurious products, but there's a gap between the customer perception of what Acura is, and the luxury that is in our cars," he said. "We're going to focus our efforts on strengthening that position and closing that gap."

Mullen also pushed hard for the Honda business, making separate pitches, even using separate conference rooms to represent each brand. In the end, though, RPA showed "an improved consistency of message" that won the nod.

"RPA has demonstrated the ability to come up with very good work," Accavitti said. "We know there are good things there. The campaigns RPA showed were consistent."

Accavitti, who came to Honda in August 2011 after 25 years at Chrysler and a stint at Cisco Systems, initially said he would not launch an agency review. But as time passed, he said he felt Honda "needed to reinvigorate the creative process."

Accavitti has given RPA clear marching orders on the Honda account.

"It seemed that we had a project-by-project, campaign-by-campaign, launch-by-launch approach," he said. "There was no kind of connection [among our products] ... not just across launches and campaigns, but also vertically between national and regional. You're going to see a more consistent look and feel and sound."

RPA also lost the media-buying portion of the account, to MediaVest of New York.

"Our resources were not being spent in the right manner," Accavitti said.

Agencies typically earn most of their profit from media buying. Some industry watchers say losing that portion of the account will be a serious drain on RPA's coffers.

Accavitti said Honda is "changing the compensation structure to better align [RPA's] revenue to where their costs are. Losing the media portion shouldn't affect the Honda creative business."

RPA executives declined to comment.

Although Acura is in the midst of launching several products, Honda is in a fallow period.

All of Honda's volume products have been redesigned in the past two years. That means retail takes priority, starting with a summer sales event and a freshened 2014 Odyssey minivan.

Said Accavitti: "It's about getting the customer to engage in our advertising and get them to go to the dealer."