Honda’s Hybrid Buyers Were Found on Food and Culture Content, Not Car Sites.

9,600+

Qualified conversations in two months

Impressions across two campaigns

3.5M

People reached

Honda ran two hybrid campaigns expecting to find buyers on automotive content. The post-campaign report said otherwise. The contexts that generated the most interaction were food, cooking and culture, and that finding is worth more than the media it came from.

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Inside Honda’s conversational hybrid campaigns.

“We learned things we would never have learned from a pre-roll, and that insight feeds directly into our next campaigns.”

Paul Collignon, Director of Marketing, Automobile Division, Honda

The challenge

Going beyond the classic pre-roll for a technology people do not understand

Honda wanted to move past broadcasting a message about its hybrid range and start an actual conversation with consumers. Hybrid powertrains raise practical questions that a thirty-second pre-roll cannot begin to answer.

There was a second, less obvious problem. Reaching car buyers is usually approached by buying automotive content, on the assumption that people interested in cars are found where cars are discussed. That assumption had never really been tested.

The strategy

Audience first, format second

The work did not begin with the format. It began with the audience, which means Ray, Dailymotion’s audience intelligence platform. Ray analyses millions of signals each month from proprietary first-party data to build targeting that is both precise and granular. Before a single impression runs, it already knows the interests of the target audience, so a campaign can find people where they actually spend time. On that foundation Honda activated EchoAI. An AI agent, fed with content supplied by Honda and built directly into the ad format, turned the advertising experience into a personalised dialogue. Viewers did not just watch. They asked how the hybrid powertrain works, compared trims and explored the technology in their own words. Two campaigns ran in sequence. The ZR-V campaign ran from 22 October to 16 November against a custom New Power Generation audience. The Jazz campaign ran from 13 November to 14 December against a custom New Status Seekers audience.

1
Discover with Ray
2
Build custom audiences
3
Activate beyond the obvious context
4
Verify with IAS

5
Learn from the conversations

Professional Services delivered our most critical corporate event flawlessly. 98% uptime isn't just a number—it's peace of mind.

Marcus, CTO

The results

Ahead of market benchmarks on every measure that mattered

Combined, the two campaigns delivered 8 million impressions and reached 3.5 million people, generating more than 9,600 qualified conversations in two months. These were real exchanges in which users asked questions and compared models. Completion rates were 78% and 79%, both above benchmark, with visibility at 87% and 85% as measured by IAS. The conversations themselves became a live read on what buyers actually want to know. For the ZR-V, hybrid technology and powertrain dominated at 41% of conversation topics. For the Jazz, Honda SENSING safety technology led at 35%. Then the discovery. The natural hypothesis going in was that the most engaged prospects would be found on automotive content: car sites, comparison tools, technical reviews. The contexts that generated the most interaction were food, cooking and culture content. Honda’s future buyers do not define themselves solely by an interest in cars.

9,600+

Qualified conversations in two months

Impressions across two campaigns

3.5M

People reached

87%

Visibility, measured by IAS

Why this matters for automotive marketing

Honda’s campaigns produced a finding that should change how automotive media is planned.

Conversation beats broadcast

The most engaged prospects came from food, cooking and culture content, not car sites. Interest in a category is not the same as living in it.

Conversations are research

9,600 exchanges revealed that hybrid powertrain led at 41% and safety technology at 35%. No pre-roll produces that.

Signals beat assumptions

These environments were not chosen at random. Ray’s signals pointed there, and the results confirmed it.

Key Takeaways

Start with the audience, not the format
Ray identified where to be before anyone chose how to appear.
Question the obvious context
Automotive content is the default, not necessarily the answer.

Treat the ad as a listening device
Question topics feed product strategy, messaging and sales enablement.
Measure conversations, not just completions
9,600 qualified exchanges say more than 8 million impressions.