The Brief

Honda Internavi is the world's first car navigation system that recommends routes based on real-time traffic data collected via the 3G network from other Internavi-equipped Honda vehicles and provides the most pleasant driving experiences to drivers across Japan. Because of this highly complex navigation system, it was difficult for Honda to achieve people’s understanding of Internavi. Therefore, the number of users was struggling with little growth, and furthermore, there were many inactive users. To help Internavi reach its full potential, both users and new members needed to understand its rich feature set.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

The real-time information collected by Internavi was simply and beautifully visualized and made available to the public. We launched a website visualizing how this complex system works. People could watch real-time status of cars all over Japan from 6 different angles, experiencing and understanding the functions of Internavi. Because the information is visualized in real-time, user activity is reflected online everytime they use Internavi. Furthermore, at events such as the Tokyo Motor Show, which had 840,000 visitors, we displayed Internavi’s multiple data feeds simultaneously on six large screens and 12 speakers.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The visualization showed how every Internavi user plays a key role by contributing information about traffic conditions throughout Japan. And the animated data feed enhanced awareness by showing users where cars were driving at any given moment. By viewing the website, users and other people can feel and realize the pulse of the system. The animated infographic developed based on real-time data created a lot of buzz and was mentioned online extensively. Internavi usage increased by 200%. Internavi registration increased by 120% compared to the previous year.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The Internavi system is comprised of lots of bits of data including a wide variety of numerical information. So in an effort to boil all this information down into manageable and simple visuals, we decided to represent the data by using color-coded dots. As information is updated in real-time, the visualization of the dots change accordingly, projecting the up-to-date information in a simple display of a kaleidoscope of colored dots.