There are only 13 days 16 hours 49 minutes and 17 seconds until Honda’s latest vehicle debut. Is it the new Honda S2000? Discontinued. Or is it Honda’s luxury brand Acura building a new NSX? Discontinued. Or is Honda building the S3000 Concept from 2008? Unfortunately not.
The countdown is for the all-new Honda Accord CrossTour, a “coupe” SUV variant of the already debuted Acura ZDX. In an attempt to build buzz for Honda’s latest boring, reliable transportation, they have implemented a countdown clock that is more familiar on debuts for a lust worthy sports car like a Ferrari California, Nissan GT-R or Ford Mustang, all of which had countdown clocks on their launch websites.
Honda is currently running ad units on Facebook that bring users to a Honda Accord CrossTour fan page where they can read some posts from Honda’s own Twitter PR representative @Alicia_at_Honda and can watch a video showing clear valley, mountain lush roads just waiting for a vehicle to appear, but nothing but barren roads are shown. It ends with no messaging.
The Facebook execution is currently void of any information, beyond a wall post saying it will be available fall of 2009. So, if you click through the ads you are brought to fan page for a vehicle you can’t see, watch a video with an empty road, and learn nothing about Honda’s new product. It’s a fairly odd destination and fails to entice the reader to want to know more, except for the ardent Honda brand advocate. You wonder what some one thinks when they essentially get nothing. Comments on the Facebook fan page predominantly come from Honda defenders who are happy with their prior Honda purchase. Few commentators care to know more about the Accord CrossTour. Those who do want to know more share links to Car & Driver spy photos.
We’ll have to see how the reveal evolves. Maybe something will finally show up on the video’s empty roads. Right now, it’s an interesting way to unveil and build buzz for a rather sedate vehicle. Will anyone really care 13 days 15 hours 35 minutes and 9 seconds remain until a new beefed up hatchback enters the US market? Apparently 1,849 Facebook fans care enough to listen.
