Talk:Cog (advertisement)/Archive 1

old discussion

Can anyone confirm that this was never shown on US television due to the cost of such a long segment? -- Darac 13:42, 3 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Nope. i saw it on a news station once, so i had the eviable position of being one of the only people that caught it, unless you watched NBC or CNN or something like that. -- SabinFigaro 11:13 AM, May 20, 2005

I have also seen it on TV, I thought it ran during some big time event, but I do remember seeing it in it's entirety as an actual advertisement. I personally wouldn't want to buy the car either way, but it made me go "Wow, this commericial is sweet." PirateMonkey 00:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

What years was it produced/aired in? Circeus 02:26, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

2003 was it's main run; I first saw it in full at the cinema before The Matrix Reloaded, it got into Channel 4's Top TV Treats Of 2003 and then mostly disappeared. Kinitawowi 20:36, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

I think the last time I saw it was on the 29th December 2004, when ITV1 were showing Star Wars Episode IV. For some reason the entire ad-break consisted of nothing but Honda adverts, and that was one of the adverts shown. BillyH 15:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

You´re just plain s_tupid.

Relevancy, berevity, be damned: would somebody like to name each car part in the secquence? Are they all from the advertised model? Are they all honda/acura? 74.104.15.247 21:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Link

I am adding a link to the flash version. --Shell 02:49, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Method

I think it's stop-motion. --Anonymous, 08:42, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Stop thinking. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 02:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Sporting Trick External Link

I don't think the link is necessary. It has little or nothing to do with the article. Ben 21:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

This is the link I had in mind:

• Sporting Trick Video on Google Video

I'm removing it. Any questions or objections? Ben 21:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The Way Things Go

I recently saw part of Fischli/Weiss's The Way Things Go at The Lowry gallery in Salford and I have to admit, Cog bears more than a passing resemblance to it. In fact the similarity is blatant - although in many ways the range of interactions in the Fischli/Weiss film is rather more clever. -- Solipsist 15:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

• There should probably be a reference to Fischli and Weiss in the opening paragraph of this article. The commercial does not contain some similarities to their work, it is a deliberate homage or, if they were not paid or credited, a blatant rip-off. That said, Fischli and Weiss were probably fans of Mouse Trap (board game) as children.Terwilliger 19:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Official Honda Website

Can someone find and provide the link to the ad on the official Honda site? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.69.54.1 (talk) 10:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

Name of Cog?

I have heard a few reasons why it's called cog. Some have said because of the gear in a car which is first seen in the commercial. Others have said center of gravity, possibly suggesting the car's center of gravity shifting at the end to finalize the scene. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ucla1989 (talk • contribs) 08:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Correction of "606 takes" misconception.

(First time participating in a Wikipedia edit ... still trying to figure out how to do things correctly, properly cite, etc.)

Many media reports stated the ad required 606 takes to complete. Antoine Bardou-Jacquet, the ad's director, replies "That was just us messing around in the 'making of' video. We put 606 on the clapper board as a joke and everyone in the press picked up on it and thought it was for real. In reality, it was probably 20 or so takes each day for the five-day shoot." http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/181579/ Dolcent (talk) 07:51, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

No way this is real

I know snopes has “confirmed” that Honda said it's real, but I'm sorry I just don't believe it. It's an elaborate hoax. I am experienced in CGI, and this has all the tell-tale signs of 3D computer graphics/3D rendering. The reflections and textures are too perfect looking and look like Ray tracing (graphics) and the motion of the objects is too perfect (motion is too springy and smooth) and looks like Dynamical simulation). I will believe it when I see the unedited video of the takes with humans setting it up or humans holding cameras etc. And why would an ad agency go through the horror of setting this kind of thing up when you could do the equivalent with CGI for cheaoper and quicker. Sorry, but ad agencies are about makung money, not about doing something "cool". Lastly, the director Antoine Bardou-Jacquet is known for CGI work and his bio says "He is constantly creating new concepts for CGI and is working on new ideas for film making". It's a hoax. Flame me all you want, but i wont believe it until I see some proof. Repliedthemockturtle (talk) 15:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

So what you're saying is, this looks shopped. You can tell from the pixels, and from seeing quite a few shops in your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.82.22 (talk) 10:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with you that this is CGI. I thought it was rather obvious, it looks like a Michael Bay movie. I came to Wikipedia for this reason, because I couldn't believe it when they said it took them 606 tries to succeed. That would be way too expensive compared to the costs of CGI. (OK, someone above said that the 606 takes weren't true, but still) I saw the ad right after footage from the movie 'Der Lauf der Dinge', by which it was 'inspired'. I know that movie is from 1987, but just look at the HUGE visual differences. Do the makers really think we're so stupid we don't know what reality looks like anymore? Just like you I won't believe it until I see proof.(213.10.46.8 (talk) 18:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC))

Notes from rewrite

Howdy! Just finished pasting the new version of the article from my Sandbox. A few things to note from the rewrite:

• Budget: Some argument about what the budget was exactly. Not helped by the fact that W+K didn't release the official figure. Figures range from the £1m linked in the article (and in several other sources) through £800k ([1]) down to £750k ([[2]]). When it's mentioned at all, the £1m figure seems the most common, though that may be just because it's a nice round number.

• Number of takes: The number used by most members of the press was 606, taken from the clapboard on the making-of. Bardou-Jacquet admits that this figure was facetious ([3]) and that it was actually ~20 takes a day. HOWEVER, Ben Walker mentions in the Adweek interview reffed in the article that the actual figure was 70-80 over the two days (35-40 per day), with a total of about 600 over the entire production schedule. Need to decide who to believe, or just make the number of takes more vague.

• Lawsuit: A lot of media outlets reported that the Swedish artists were in the process of sueing the makers of Cog. However, as the links provided in the article attest, that was a misconception. The pair sent a letter (via their lawyer) complaining about the use of their work, but the letter was never followed up.

• Breakfast Cereal: the reference provided for the "Sugar Puffs parody" actually says that the cereal was "Sugar Snaps". There is no cereal brand by that name, and W+Ks optimism blog corrects the assertion and points to the ad being for "Sugar Puffs" (and I'm sure more than a few of you remember the ad yourself. It was the one with the Honey Monster using the convoluted breakfast contraption.) Sadly, blogs, even official ones, don't really rate as Reliable Sources, so I'm not sure how to correctly ref that sentence.

• Most awarded ad: Could really, really do with getting hold of a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records where the ad is mentioned. I know the fact is true, but could do with a more reliable source to back it up. Also: not entirely sure whether Grrr (the only possible contender since) beat Cog out of its record, or whether it still holds it.

• Negative criticism: Aside from the plagiarism accusation, Cog *was* pretty much universally beloved by the advertising community. However, back when I was digging up sources, I did find one authoritative commentator (in Adweek? AdAge? something like that) moaning that Cog was the latest in big-budget wastes of time. to make it better, the article was trashed by another critic from another publication. Could really do with something to balance out the slightly hagiographical tone that the Reception section has, but I can't seem to find the article any more. If anyone else has a subscription to the online trade journals, please lend a hand and help me track down some negative criticism!

• Pull quotes: I think the article has enough decoration, but in case anyone disagrees, here are a few pull quotes I thought about using but never did:
  • "This is a viral success story; more specifically, it is a viral creative success story, demonstrating that a great idea knows no boundaries, formats or restrictions." - imed
  • "We wanted to get someone who was a bloody genius, who understood film and who could capture what we wanted. That's why we got Antoine Bardou-Jacquet involved." - Ben Walker, http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/4202298-1.html
  • "My own opinion is that this is the best commercial that I have seen for at least ten years." - Charles Inge, chairman of BTAA jury (chairman's foreword)
  • "Of course we didn't invent the chain reaction and Cog is obviously a different thing. But we did make a film the creatives of the Honda ad have obviously seen. We feel we should have been consulted about the making of this ad," - Fischli ([4])
  • "It is difficult to say it was plagiarised because we are all influenced by something else. This was chosen because of its ability to surprise the viewer. It took hundreds of rehearsals because there were no special effects used. It got a lot of free publicity because people were so interested in how it was made that in the end it paid for itself." - Steven Davies, chief executive of the APA - ([5])

Just a note, but what's currently up on the article page is a rough first draft. It needs a LOT of copyediting. I'm hoping some MP exposure via the DYK feature will encourage some souls to pitch in. If not, I'll probably get back to it in a few months when I can see it with fresh eyes, and maybe push this up the assessment chain. For now, enjoy the ad and the article! GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 22:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Quotation marks/italics

Having just reverted a change from italics to quotation marks around Cog, I thought I'd explain my reasoning here. While the list at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) doesn't include commercials specifically, it does indicate that titles for articles on film-based media (documentaries, feature-length films, television series, televised plays, etc.) should be italicised. If you take away the sponsored production of Cog or any other commercial, they are essentially short films. A quick browse of Category:Short films shows that the consensus is that titles of articles on such material should be italicised. There's also a fair amount of precedent within articles on advertisements, including the only FA in the category, noitulovE. Finally, if the decision to switch over is made, it needs to be consistent throughout the article. The version reverted had only changed Cog to "Cog", leaving all other titles (Sense, Tipping Point, etc.) unaltered. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 21:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I won't revert it as I'll leave it up to you to make the call, but I did consider the fact that advertisements are often regarded as short films – I should have pointed out that short films are explicitly listed at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) as works whose titles should appear in quotation marks rather than italics. You're right that the articles in Category:Short films suggest a prevailing preference for italics, though Category:Television commercials is more split. –CapitalLetterBeginning (talk) 11:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Sources

• Dobele, Angela; Toleman, David; Beverland, Michael; "Controlled infection! Spreading the brand message through viral marketing", Business Horizons, Vol. 48, No. 2, March 2005, pp. 143-149.

  W+Ks proposed new strategy in 2001 was to connect to consumers indirectly, through friends, spouses, family (word of mouth), "making consumers the instruments of advocacy"

  Three months after first running in the UK, The Cog was screened on Australian television

• used as textbook example of viral marketing. (any book/journal source, plenty of them).
• Buckland, Warren; Film theory and contemporary Hollywood movies, Routledge (26 June 2009), pp. 157-163. ISBN 978-0415962612

  118 parody

  allusions to a gallery space and the works of installation artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Alexander Calder, and Jean Tinguely.

  Further allusions to the famous "Labour isn't working" political slogan of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. idesi a and c

GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 19:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)