Australia attempts to pack its entire country inside a Honda Jazz

Honda, you had me at ninjas. On the heels of Toyota's Swagger Wagon and Kia's rapping hamsters, Honda has created its own time-wasting video snippets meant to show off the roominess and cheekiness of its Jazz model. Made in Australia, the videos present a new twist on how many clowns can fit in a car, or how many non-claustrophobic folks can squeeze into a phone booth. The campaign stuffs ninjas (right), hipsters, rappers and bodybuilders into a Jazz. The ninjas fold themselves into the compact car so quickly, you might miss it if you blink. It's no mean feat for marketers to create spots that go viral—even though they may describe their campaigns as such before a single person passes a link along—but this one seems to be catching on. So far, they've been played more than 400,000 times, with the hipster spot by far the most popular. Bet they couldn't get a pirate in their trunk. Go ninjas!

Wieden's new Honda commercial is itself a marvel of engineering

In this new spot for Honda U.K., Wieden + Kennedy London details the breadth of the automaker's engineering expertise, ranging from ATVs and marine engines to motorcycles and the humanoid robot Asimo—and to cars, of course, particularly Honda's British-produced Civic model. The 60-second ad "Everything" breaks on Thursday in U.K. cinemas that are premiering James Cameron's Avatar. The agency considered doing a 3-D shoot similar to that used in the blockbuster film. But it wouldn't have worked for the spot's film technique, which is jaw-dropping even by the standards of complexity in the agency's previous Honda commercials like "Cog." (Another collaboration, "Grrr," was named Commercial of the Decade by AdweekMedia.) The fluid series of fractured visuals, music and sound design required 972 edits over 17 video layers, essentially making each section an edit in itself. The soundtrack, "Atlas" by Battles, was rearranged to fit the picture and reflect the editing style used for the ad.

—Posted by Noreen O'Leary

Honda Jazz is great for hauling around millions of virtual blocks

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to experience your Honda on acid, this Australian ad for the Honda Jazz is for you. 303 Advertising in Perth worked with Animal Logic, a digital animation firm, to create 1.5 million virtual Mega Bloks, which shift form and shape from giant blocks to a globe to dragon/cat-looking thing to a wave and surfboard and then into octopus tentacles, which spring out of the car's side windows. From there, they morph into a tree and then a rainbow and then into the letters JAZZ. All the while, a funky tune that sounds like a missing track off Sly and the Family Stone's There's a Riot Going On plays. It's pretty trippy stuff, but it also shows how much room there is inside a Jazz, which is known around these parts as the Fit.

—Posted by Todd Wasserman

Honda drivers making merry with free gas in Southern California

'Tis the season for giving, and the Southern California Honda Dealers Association is doing its part with free gasoline. The dealers have been sending out Honda Helpful teams to assist people in various ways—handing out umbrellas when it's raining, distributing reusable grocery bags at local markets, holding doors for people at coffee shops, feeding the homeless and so on. And now, if you own a Honda and catch them at the right place and time, they'll fill up your tank at no charge, through the end of December. Hey, every little bit helps.

—Posted by Elaine Wong

Honda aims to boldly go where Segway pathetically went before

The Segway may have turned out to be something of a punch line, especially when Paul Blart rides one. But that hasn't stopped imitators from coming out with their own self-balancing electric vehicles. In fact, one of the hottest online videos right now is this soundless demonstration of Honda's entry to the market, the U3-X. The U3-X looks like a motorized unicycle, though the wheel is actually made up of several small wheels that rotate independently, allowing for side-to-side and backward motion. It's unclear at this point when the U3-X might be ready for the market, or what the applications could be. For the lazy? The morbidly obese? Oh yeah, there's a huge market for it here in the U.S.

—Posted by Todd Wasserman

Honda CR-V will drive you to the summer movies with Fandango

Are rising gas prices threatening to put the kibosh on your summer road-trip plans? Maybe if you had a new fuel-sipping Honda CR-V, which gets 27 miles to the gallon, you and your inner Clark Griswold could take to the highway without breaking the bank. It's a subtle message, but it's there on Fandango, a movie-ticketing Web service with a new feature that geographically pegs some of the year's biggest blockbusters. The automaker signed on as a sponsor of the site, which has premiere photos, weekly polls, trivia and contests. And it gives detailed info for the superfan who wants to take a closer look at filming locations. For example, the apocalyptic action flick Terminator Salvation might be set in Los Angeles but it was actually shot in Albuquerque, N.M.. And James T. Kirk's hometown in Star Trek looks like rural Iowa farmland but it's really Bakersfield, Calif. As part of its summer movie push, Fandango has also released a top 10 list of its users' favorite road-trip movies. The comedy Road Trip was a ringer, but also making the list were Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Sideways, Pee-wee's Big Adventure and, of course, National Lampoon's Vacation. What, no Are We There Yet? Right, that's what your kids will say from the backseat.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley

Honda creates its own light show, but with cars instead of sheep

As Samsung has shown, if you get enough sheep and lights together, you can simulate a giant videogame. Honda has apparently upped the ante by doing something very similar with what look like hundreds of cars turning their lights on and off. The fleet of cars were brought together by Wieden + Kennedy, Amsterdam, to promote the Insight, a vehicle Honda describes as "the most affordable hybrid on the market." The ad breaks in April to support a European launch (no word on whether the ad is coming to U.S. TV), but it's already logged more than 120,000 views on YouTube, thanks to its arresting imagery and what the company describes as a "bespoke version" of the gospel children's song "This Little Light of Mine," which has been performed by Bruce Springsteen, among others (though the ad leaves out the Jesus parts). Though the response has been pretty positive on YouTube, a one wag couldn't help commenting that Honda "had to do something with all those cars they can't sell."

—Posted by Todd Wasserman