An American icon is vanishing. Thankfully, a Japanese car company with the help of RPA in Santa Monica, is doing something about it.
Starting at 10 a.m. Pacific time today, Honda will use its Twitter page to conduct an auction hosted by celebrity film critic Leonard Maltin. Proceeds from the auction will benefit Project Drive-In, Honda’s community service campaign to help a handful of drive-in movie theaters make the expensive transition to digital projection.
To participate in today’s auction, bidders can Tweet the title of the item, the bid price and apply the hash tag #DriveInAuction. The highest bid at the close of the auction wins. The auction concludes at 2 p.m. PT.
Alicia Jones, Manager of Honda & Acura Social Marketing says the use of Vine and Twitter to showcase the auction items makes sense because, “We want to leverage a medium where people are already talking about #SaveTheDriveIn.”
Here’s the problem: digital projectors can cost $85,000 plus installation, which most of the remaining 368 American drive-ins cannot afford. Sadly, failure to convert to digital will cause most of these drive-ins to cease operations. Which, as American car drivers and movie lovers we know to be wrong.
To contribute to this cause, visit the campaign’s IndieGoGo page. So far, $35,000 has been raised via this channel, which is $65,000 short of the goal.
Previously on AdPulp: Honda Makes Itself Useful, Launches Perfect Public Service-Like Campaign