Honda is today unveiling its ‘The Great Unknown’ campaign, created by Wieden & Kennedy, to promote the launch of the new Civic model across Europe.

The campaign breaks with a 30 second TV spot, supported by a longer 60 second version, and features the message that it’s only by venturing into the unknown that you can truly discover something new and innovative.

Ellie Tory, European communications manager at Honda Motor Europe: “The campaign has been designed to look upon the unknown with optimism. The campaign began with a series of interactive experiences allowing users to experiment and feel the joy of doing things for the first time, similar to how our Engineers felt as they developed the new 9TH generation Civic.

“The film is a summation of this journey through the unknown and the result of persevering is brought to life in a dramatic reveal. The film looks fresh and new, helping us to improve our overall brand image across Europe with a wide range of customers.”

There have been three interactive experiences that Wieden & Kennedy London created to support the campaign: Follow Happy: an interactive game, using sound and touch, allows players to follow the thought process of Honda engineers when they decided that 'Happiness' was to be their guide; The Experiment Game: an HTML5 game that uses physics principles to challenge players to create a chain reaction by placing a set of pop-up windows in sequence; and Off the Grid: a 360º video experience that lets viewers venture into the unknown and inspired by the Street View experience.

Tony Davidson, executive creative director at Wieden + Kennedy, said: “Most people fear doing something that they have never done before. But for Honda this is what gets them up in the morning. Research and Development have always been at the heart of Honda. The challenge for the engineers working on the new Civic was to design a vehicle that bettered the leading car in the category in many aspects. They didn't know how they would achieve this because it hadn't been done before. That is the joy of the Great Unknown”.