Dive Brief:

• Honda Motor Company rolled out an integrated campaign promoting its 2018 Fit Sport model over the weekend, per a press release made available to Marketing Dive. The effort is specifically targeted at a diverse millennial audience and will leverage comedians, influencers and social media platforms to connect with those consumers.  
• The campaign includes several humorous ads on TV and Hulu, online banner ads and also ads on Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Honda is enlisting Snapchat's geotargeting feature to reach young car buyers in the moment.
• The company released two TV spots aimed at Hispanic and African-American millennials looking for a car "with some personality," per the release. Later this month, Honda will partner with Latino digital network Mitú for an online series featuring Latino comedians' commentary on traffic, as well as a humorous series hosted by an Instagram comedian highlighting the fun aspects of the Fit model.

Dive Insight:

Honda's goal of reaching millennials with the new Fit campaign demonstrates how the age segment's spending power is steadily growing as it matures into major life events like buying homes and cars. The focus on engaging multicultural millennials, in particular, points to the shifting demographic makeup of the U.S. consumer base and how younger shoppers are especially receptive to diverse representations in their marketing.

This trend is highly relevant for automakers, which have readjusted their strategies to better cater to black and Hispanic markets that have previously been underserved. Mazda earlier this year extended its "Driving Matters" general market campaign with a digital-first effort targeted at Hispanic audiences. In an interesting twist, that push focused on the brand's Japenese roots and core philosophies — values Mazda found were highly resonant with Hispanic drivers but not well-communicated in its marketing. 

Honda, on the other hand, is putting a premium on humor and social media channels to get its message across. The new campaign is geared toward young, busy and "uber-connected" people, the company said, which is why its leveraging tactics like influencers and comedians along with running short ads on popular apps like Instagram and Snapchat. Ads will also appear during NFL and NCAA football games and on Hulu. Honda has seen a 12% increase in multicultural millennial buyers since 2010, according to data shared in the release.

This isn't the first campaign from the auto brand this year that's focused on staying fun and light-hearted. In June, it started promoting its Odyssey model with TV spots that depicted young siblings' bickering as a blockbuster-sized CGI monster battle.