Just as amazing as the film itself is the story behind the story. The how and why deserves some ink in The Urbach Letter. It's a great little marketing case study. This commercial was created for Honda of the U.K. and has been airing in England since April 6^th. It's since taken on a life of its own on the web as the streaming video version has been clicked 'round the world by "word of mouse." Created by the Portland Oregon ad firm of Weiden & Kennedy at a cost of over one million dollars, the piece is now a contender for the "Grand Prix" in the International Advertising Festival in Cannes. The campaign is doing wonders for Honda's lackluster brand in England. (Unlike in the United States, Hondas there have a reputation for being dull and lacking in style. Their engineering is regarded as inferior to the elite European marques.) However, this ad is changing attitudes. Since it started airing, the British press has picked up the story and created a lot of buzz. Honda's web site traffic is up 400%, calls to their telephone information center have tripled, and guys like me are spreading the story far and wide.

Do you think that would have *ever* happened with an ordinary car commercial? Of course not. Especially since most auto ads are so similarly cast: beauty shots of cars careening along a twisty road… or the ubiquitous SUV plowing through a mud puddle. Yawn. No, this is more performance art than car commercial. More "Mousetrap" than typical slice-of-car-ownership-life. This ad *deserves* the recognition it's getting. That's what happens when a forward-thinking client and a creative agency get together. To create "Cog," Weiden & Kennedy assembled a team of engineers, sculptors, art directors, and film pros. It took one month to draft the script, two months for concept drawings and storyboards, and four more months of development and testing. Filming took place over four days and nights in a huge studio in Paris France. After 605 takes (yes, six hundred and five), they finally got it right on the 606^th. Finally, everything worked. Most of the crew didn't sleep during the entire 4-day shoot.

The end result is Cog, destined to become an advertising legend. Cog will take its place next to Apple's "1984" (which put the Macintosh on the computing map) and Lyndon Johnson's 1964 spot, "Daisy," as one of the most memorable, attitude-changing commercials of all time.