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Honda ramps up social presence in millennial-centric push for Civic redesign

Honda is shifting into high gear on mobile, targeting millennials for a Civic redesign through ads unique to social media platforms that do well with the young demographic.

The Honda Civic has been known to be popular with younger drivers and the automaker is not missing out on any chances to reach the millennial demographic, with a series of mobile-pushes on popular social media outlets. Honda is increasing its presence on Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook with a variety of different ad campaigns native to each platform such as filters on Snapchat and video ads on Instagram.

"Utilizing mobile pushes through social media is crucial to marketers in today?s environment because those are the channels most utilized by consumers," said James Briggs, CEO of Briabe Mobile. "Social content is extremely shareable, so by putting this content at consumer?s fingertips through mobile devices, you are creating an army of brand ambassadors to share your message.

"This can help a campaign go viral and put your message in front of millions of consumers very quickly," he said.

Driving mobile engagement
The automaker is ramping up for the Honda Civic 2016 redesign to ensure millennials are aware of its new look and features. The brand will be sharing a filter available nationally on Snapchat in the upcoming weeks for users to hopefully share their excitement for the new design with other users. 

Snapchat?s Discover channel for publishers Buzzfeed and IGN will be taken over by the brand for one day to celebrate the vehicle?s release. Video and photo advertisements will be seen within the platform?s collective live stories and other Discover channels. 


Honda shares still images on various outlets for its new Civic campaign

Honda is also taking advantage of Instagram?s marquee video ads, which allow brand partners to go extend the 15-second limit to 30 seconds, as well as traditional still images. There will also be sponsored posts on other social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. 

Mobile and desktop pages on YouTube and Yahoo will also get a takeover devoted to the 2016 Honda Civic campaign. Buzzfeed is also partnering for a three-part video series targeting the general market and Hispanic to reach a broad audience through the popularity of mobile video and the publication itself. 

The campaign is centered on Honda?s television spot named the Dreamer, which features an engineer dreaming up the new design, along with the slogan ?direct from our imagination, the all new Civic. 

Honda?s mobile pushes
Similarly, Honda promoted its nationwide Honda Dream Garage Sales Event through a mobile wallet ad campaign that invites consumers to tap a banner ad and save the event to Apple?s Passbook or Google Wallet (see more). 

Honda dealers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut also leveraged the selfie craze in the past by inviting showroom visitors to snap a picture with a new Civic to have a chance to win the car (see more). 

"Honda is clearly making an effort to attract a younger buyer, which is a demographic that can be reached directly through mobile and social channels," Mr. Briggs said. "It has been well documented how much content the millennial audience consumes through mobile and social, so implementing an advertising campaign through these channels will provide a brand with direct access to the consumers they are targeting.

"Moreover, young consumers, and especially millennials are a very important demographic for automakers," he said.