Acura, a Honda high-performance brand, has gained popularity in North America by emphasizing its uniqueness. How did Acura develop this uniqueness to gain its recognition in an auto industry where so many car manufacturers and brands compete?

This article introduces Acura’s activities in North America, including its entertainment productions that makes use of the brand’s worldview and car racing, as well as the brand’s concept and background of the brand’s launch.

In 1986, Acura, a brand advocating Precision Crafted Performance, was launched in North America, before other Japanese car manufacturers launched their own premium brands. 

At that time, the U.S. automobile market was reaching maturity, and customers began to seek new value in cars. To meet such customers’ expectations, Honda introduced the new Acura brand to the U.S. market.

Acura’s product concept was a high-performance brand promoting a young, energetic and sporty image, unlike other premium brands that aimed for luxury.

Honda's goal in introducing Acura was to offer new values to Honda’s loyal customers under the simple and sincere tagline “Precision Crafted Performance.”

In the 2000s, the U.S. economy continued to expand despite numerous uncertainties, supported by monetary easing policies and a housing boom, creating an apparent bubble economy.

With such a booming economy, the various automakers promoted luxury cars. Acura, pushed by this trend, began to move away from its origins, gravitating toward luxury cars, making its positioning unclear.

It was at this time that the U.S. economy had been hit by the subprime mortgage crisis which triggered the Lehman collapse. This led to a recession domestically, forcing automakers to rethink their luxury brands.

As the key to overcoming the faltering U.S. economy, Acura began by returning to its roots, reviving the concept of “Precision Crafted Performance” rather than following other luxury brands.

As mentioned above, in North America, Acura has a unique brand communication approach setting it apart from other luxury car brands.

It stays true to Acura’s brand identity when it was originally launched, showcasing its independent spirit, performance, and having fun.

Also, Acura portrays itself to young buyers as a brand that “gets them.”

As its methodology, Acura has been tapping into pop culture and entertainment-style programming, depicting its products with a passion for racing through anime and innovative creative media, to appeal to a wide range of interests.

One clear example is its sponsorship of the Sundance Film Festival, held every January in Utah. Acura has been a sponsor of the festival, a gateway to success for independent filmmakers, for 13 years, and has supported talented next-generation challengers at the festival.

In conjunction with the event in 2022, Acura produced a short animated story, Chiaki’s Journey. In this film, the main character Chiaki, driving an Acura Type S, overcomes hard-ships on her way to becoming a racing driver, typical of Acura’s support for challengers.

This anime was designed as a PR video to create future potential customers, while at the same time expressing Acura’s spirit of the joy of driving in a way that everyone could relate to. It also conveys the excitement of racing through portrayal of the high-performance Type S series.

The anime’s theme song was performed by Nemophila, a Japanese all-girl heavy metal band.

Chiakiʼs Journey, expressed as Japanese animation, a cultural phenomenon with passionate young fans around the world, communicates that Acura is a Japanese brand. It has already become so popular that two seasons have been released.

Acura, a brand that emanates a unique appeal, pursues a diverse range of activities to increase its visibility among a wide demographic. These activities also apply to the world of car racing.

Since 2018, Acura has participated in the IMSA Endurance Championship, one of America’s premier road racing events, including title sponsor of the Long Beach Grand Prix, to prove itself as a high-performance brand.

In addition to participation in car races, Acura has been the title sponsor of the Long Beach Grand Prix since 2019, and the event has been renamed to the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach^*

Acura will continue to take on the challenge of the coming electrification era.

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