In anxious times, brands don’t always need to focus only on magical innovations—sometimes it’s enough simply to adapt solutions that already exist in the “economic pop culture.” Honda recently brought an existing innovation—Brazil’s ethanol-friendly Flex engine—to a very relevant category among Brazilians: motorcycles.
Brazil’s auto industry created the Flex technology, which allows cars to be fueled by gasoline or ethanol, or even both concurrently. Ethanol is also a Brazilian innovation: The country found a way to subvert the oil industry—gas in Brazil can cost three times as much as it does in the U.S.—and develop its own industry by creating and producing this alternative fuel. Ethanol causes less pollution and comes from a renewable source of energy, sugar cane (which grows in abundance in Brazil).
A Flex engine can cut fuel expenses by 30 percent. Flex engines came out in 2003, and now about 90 percent of cars sold in Brazil have them. In putting them in motorcyles, Honda is tapping into the anxiety of low-income consumers over gas expenses and democratized a relevant innovation, promising more savings to those who need it the most, when they most need it. —with the contribution of Luiz Mastropietro
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