Honda is a brand that truly believes in the power of dreams. This isn’t simply a bullet point. It’s the DNA of the company. Soichiro Honda started his dream on two wheels. Six decades later, it continues on two wings.

This film illustrates an abridged narrative of Honda’s incredible history and demonstrates the vast range of Honda products using an engineer’s most reliable tool: paper. Using stop-motion animation, the film takes you on a journey through six decades of Honda innovation as animators flip thousands of hand-drawn illustrations. All to demonstrate how Honda is a company powered by dreams, and show a side of the brand many people haven’t seen.

Using stop-motion animation and roughly 3,000 hand-drawn paper images, we created a 2-minute film that showcases six decades of Honda’s creativity and innovation. It starts with Honda’s first generator engine used to power a bicycle in the ‘50s, and through a series of paper-flips, moves you through the brand’s history and the wide range of products Honda has built over the years – from its first motorcycle to Formula-1 race cars, from outboard boat engines to ASIMO® the robot and the HondaJet®.

No other car company could tell this story because no other brand is as innovative in so many different categories and industries. Our challenge was to create a film that demonstrated this, that felt and looked different from anything else in the car category right now.

We shot the stop-motion practically using multiple illustrators and animators who drew thousands of illustrations during a lengthy 4-month production. The collaborative nature of the film, with multiple animators representing Honda engineers working together to flip through Honda’s history, was a meta-representation of how Honda collaborates on any idea or new product. The various stocks of paper were chosen to reflect the time-period of the product itself. As we moved through time in Honda’s history, the animation style and paper stock chosen became more modern.

We also created an interactive online version that allowed viewers to simply click on an icon in the video to easily get more information on the different Honda products.

We launched with the 2-minute video on YouTube and Sunday morning football. We used native video players to post on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Google Plus. We posted :15 teasers on Instagram and :06 teasers on Vine, all driving viewers to the full video.

The work successfully got attention for the brand, with views surpassing expectations and high engagement.

Social results:

• 13.3MM views (with 12.9MM views within the first two weeks)

• 54.6MM social impressions

• 841K social engagements

• Social sentiment was overwhelmingly positive, with most discussions centered around both the execution and Honda being creative, innovative, surprising and attention-getting.

Ace Metrix results:

• It was the most Visually Appealing brand image ad of the year

• The video received an Ace Score of +34 points above the automotive brand image norm

• Source: Ace Metrix, Sept 2015