Just as the gardener comes out of hibernation ready to tackle their lawn, Honda’s new Miimo range, HRM 1000 – HRM 4000, has landed with a campaign aiming to disrupt the European robotic lawnmower market.

Insight from global strategic creative agency Southpaw shows that many potential customers are still sceptical of robot mowers and unconvinced by their seeming gimmicks and technology. Armed with this information, the campaign centres around a friendly, inquisitive UFO coming to Earth and discovering a sign of intelligent life that’s quietly going about its lawn care task.

 The launch film produced by Ginger Whippet Films, and directed by Henry Littlechild, plays on multiple film culture references, and uses techniques used on Star Wars to manipulate the UFO’s movements using a 3D model, rather than solely relying on CGI.

The robotic lawnmower market in Europe is expecting huge growth over the next few years, with it predicted that by 2028 the sector will be worth close to *$1401mand globally and **£10bn by 2032, so the new Miimo range campaign looks to establish Honda as the intelligent choice for customers.

‍Southpaw’s Managing Director Claire Lambell said that ‘with the launch of Honda’s new range of robotic mowers we wanted to create a Pan-European integrated campaign which would stand out in what is now a very saturated market. We knew we couldn’t rely solely on communicating the technology within Honda’s new Miimo range, we had to find a different angle to ensure we created something memorable and distinctive. We uncovered a core consumer insight that enabled us to build a campaign that resonated with our consumer and allowed us to be boldin our creative with the introduction of a character – we wanted to celebrate one form of intelligent life by bringing in another’ 

Nikhil Menon Nayar, Marketing and Communications – Section Manager, Honda Power Products: ‘working with our long term strategic and creative partners Southpaw, we have created an exciting new campaign to raise awareness of Miimo, our new robotic lawn mower range. For this new product range we wanted to cut through the noise with a campaign which would disrupt the category, and Southpaw’s strategic and creative approach helped us achieve just that. This is a new creative direction for Power Products and something we plan to build upon for the Miimo range moving forward.’