New Honda commercial

Following the exceptionally innovative Cog, Grrr, and Choir ads, I was interested to see what Wieden + Kennedy would do next with its advertising for Honda.

The latest TV campaign airs this week and features a car made of jigsaw pieces and a giant sculpture of an engine constructed from thousands of Rubik's cubes,

The rubik cube art thing has actually been done before.

Anyway, not to detract from this, the ad presents Honda's engineers tackling many more series of bizarre puzzles to highlight the innovative thinking, and problem-solving engineering techniques, behind their new FCX Clarity hydrogen-fuelled car.

They even slot in a small reference to Cog by creating a chain reaction with spoons and polystyrene cups on a tea break.

The ad finishes with the Honda team creating a car out of jigsaw pieces, a scene that echoes "the Baking of" ad created by Fallon London for Skoda (the idea begins to wear a little thin by now.)

It closes, as always, with Garrison Keillor’s voiceover spelling out the message of the ad – a feature of Honda campaigns that gets more condescending and aggravating every time. Maybe they need to work on a change here? (Dervla Kirwan's booker at M&S, take note of that tip too.)

Despite the minor criticisms, all in all a riveting ad.