In a more recent episode of Community, “Advanced Safety Features,” “Subway” makes a return to Greendale Community College but this time as a guerrilla marketer for Honda named Rick. Guerrilla marketing is defined as an advertising strategy aimed at subtly promoting products through unconventional and unexpected methods. For instance, this episode shows Rick as an undercover advertiser for Honda who covertly fits into the college community and advertises Honda products in everyday conversation without his targets realizing. Rick identifies issues people are having and then presents Honda as a way to erase these problems.

 

Through guerrilla marketing techniques, Rick tricks people into buying Honda products, which mirrors what Honda is attempting to do with Community viewers. By weaving in promotional facts about Honda throughout the episode, the viewer naturally begins to see Honda as a desirable product despite his or her efforts to suppress conformity to this overly directed advertising. Even though one may try to avoid being manipulated by advertisements, especially when such a clear effort it made to promote the product, it is human nature to be affected in some way.

 

What makes this episode so enjoyable is that it mocks product placement by using product placement. By taking this approach to incorporating a consumer product into a television show, Honda is able to acknowledge their attempted manipulation, thus potentially making consumers more accepting of their advertising efforts. Also, the Honda episode is extremely similar to the Subway episode, but while Subway sandwiches cost around $5, Honda is advertising a much more expensive product. However, even though one episode of Community is not going to convince someone to go out and buy a car, it does have the potential to plant a seed in one’s mind and play an influence when he or she is ready to buy a car. One of the most effective advertising techniques is comedy, and when combined with a popular show, humorous advertisements are more likely to see the desired results.

 

A video illustrating the extremely high visibility of Honda’s product placement in Community:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzSsuBqMZ2I

 

Dean Pelton as a “Level 7 Susceptible” who fell for the guerrilla marketing tactics of Honda and bought many of their products (including vehicles most of which do not appear in this clip). Frankie disapproves of his surrender to Honda’s strategy, but it is likely that many viewers will also fall prey to Honda because of this episode:

 

A commercial for Community that simultaneously promotes Honda:

 

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