Grrr

Objective

Honda UK's new i-CTDi diesel engine had a real origin story behind it: chief engineer Kenichi Nagahiro hated diesels — noisy, dirty, expensive — and set out to re-engineer them from the ground up. The "Hate Something, Change Something" campaign built its whole message around that idea, and Honda needed a digital piece that would hold audiences on the campaign site well past the length of the 90-second TV spot, turning the film's message into something people could act out themselves.

Solution

Using the arrow keys, players steer a white rabbit through a pastoral, slightly surreal isometric world drawn in the same style as the TV ad. Carrots are scattered along the path to collect, but the real objective is the "hateful" objects blocking the way — a traffic light, a bear trap, a pylon, a parking meter, a broken appliance. Walking up to one makes the rabbit pull out an oversized hammer and smash it into a shower of stars, and it reforms as something friendly while the clock gains a time bonus. Garrison Keillor's voice narrates between transformations as players clear nine environments in sequence, ending at a backyard barbecue once everything along the way has been collected and fixed.

Results

Not measured for the game itself — the only figures in the campaign record (diesel Accord sales in the UK rising from 518 units in 2003 to 21,766 in 2004, overall Honda UK sales up more than 35%, brand awareness more than doubling) are attributed to the "Hate Something, Change Something" campaign as a whole, not isolated to the game.