The Campaign

Honda’s enthusiasm towards craftsmanship and 'hands-on' spirit has led their business to expand from motorcycles to include automobiles, outboard, agricultural, and robotics. However, such an intrepid spirit has never been understood properly to the market outside of Japan – in the West as well as developing countries – and Honda is almost invisible when it comes to the global brand competition. ‘Honda 3D Design Archive’ is an attempt to connect our intrepid spirit and brand to global consumers. The project allows consumers to co-create a new concept model, by giving them access to the 3D data of concept models Honda has introduced in the past. The users are allowed to modify and share their works under Creative Commons license. In the new era of manufacturing brought by the advancement of technology, like internet and affordable 3D printers, the customers are no longer treated as ‘users’ but ‘co-creators’.

The Brief

We wanted to differentiate Honda brand from other automobile manufactures – and demonstrate their unique and pioneering attitude towards manufacturing. Our core targets are new kinds of consumers who can utilize the internet and 3D printers to become the ‘Makers’ themselves – those Chris Anderson has discussed in his book “Makers”. Journalists interested in, and reporting the movement of, the 'Makers’ era, are another central target. The goal was to win their affection towards Honda.

Results

During the first month of the launch, more than 53,000 files were downloaded from all over the world. (This number is not a small number compared with the total number of 3D printers shipped during 2013, 68,000 units. As a result of this radical communication idea Honda was able to introduce the "art of manufacturing" to its users, something that has never been attempted in history, and changed the conventional communication framework between a manufacturer and its users. With a great request from the global 'Makers', the client has decided to add further concept models on the website.

Execution

On January 28th, we launched the “Honda 3D Design Archive” website and released the 3D design data of the concept models that Honda had used in past motor shows. The data is offered based on version 4.0 of Creative Commons license, and users are not only allowed to replicate but to modify and share their original works. In March 31, 2014, additional concept model data (U3-X / MOTOR COMPO ) were released on the website.

The Situation

Due to the latest technological innovations and the introduction of affordable household 3D printers, the "art of manufacturing" in society is experiencing fundamental change. Against the backdrop of such change, Honda designed this project in an effort to identify new ways of communication beyond the conventional framework between a manufacturer and its users.

The Strategy

Just as YouTube liberated amateur creatives to engage in video production, we feel that widespread use of 3D printer may bring similar phenomenon to the product design field – dissolving the border between manufacturer and user. Innovation is inevitable. In order to show the world Honda’s pioneering manufacturing spirit in the clearest and boldest way possible, our strategy was not only for Honda to release 3D data, but offer them a new set of copyright licensing standards for the Internet age based on Creative Commons licenses. This provided users for the first time with the right to act like auto manufacturers and to replicate, modify and share their works – something no other auto manufacture has done.