My Most Immortal Ad: Davud Karbassioun on Honda 'Cog'

I remember seeing the film for the first time.  

I was a junior producer at Leagas Delaney in 2002. A creative called a few of us into his office and pressed play on a new Honda commercial out of Wieden+Kennedy London.  We all watched the two minute, one-shot wonder in silence with our mouths wide open. None of us ever having seen anything like it before. 

It was so impressive, complex but effortlessly simple at the same time.

I remember feeling like we were watching something that broke the rules and changed everything.  

Two mins (yes, no cut-downs) of just the product, every detail, every COG of the new Honda Accord.

No people, no titles, no tricks, no cheats, no tricks, and until the last seconds no voiceover, no track!!!

It wasn’t a cinematic scene from an art house movie, it was ART.  A film that you couldn't take your eyes off and needed to watch again and again (which we all did without getting bored at every awards show that year).

The director Antoine Bardou-Jacquet knew his job was to not let anything break the spell and make it (look) simple in one take (or two spliced together as I later heard).

The film pre-dated Youtube by two years but seemed to predict a trend for meditative, in camera, how-the-fuck-did-they-do-that filmmaking…

Oh and just to rub it in, they license Rappers Delight by the The Sugarhill Gang and just play it as the finale. Finishing with an introduction to one of the greatest cast voices in advertising in Garrison Kielor, and a line - “The Power of Dreams” - introducing us all to one of the most incredible advertising campaigns ever made.

The brainchild of the now legendary Tony Davidson and Kim Papworth, Ben Walker and Matt Gooden, who sold it to the brand as “an engineering problem”.

A masterclass of meticulous production helmed by James Tomkinson (Partizan) and Rob Steiner (Wieden+Kennedy London).