• by Karl Greenberg , February 17, 2014

Crooners and Instagram love songs are part of social campaigns that Smart car and Honda, respectively, did on Valentine's Day. The former's “smart crooners” effort is aimed at what's left of the Big Apple after the seemingly nonstop storms there. The effort has celebrity crooners cruising around in Smarts, stopping to serenade couples. 

For the campaign, via Smart's digital agency Razorfish, the automaker tapped its Twitter followers who could tweet their or their significant other's location to @smartcarUSA and #smartcrooners and ask for a serenade. If they were lucky, or unlucky if they are easily embarrassed, the Grammy Award-nominated R&B singer-songwriter Neko Case or “American Idol” winner Ruben Studdard serenaded them.

The singers and their drivers got real-time tweets as they drove around Manhattan doing as many impromptu songs as possible -- although one assumes the number was way below targets because of the slush.  

Drew Slaven, VP marketing for Mercedes-Benz U.S.A., which manages the sibling Daimler AG unit on this side of the pond, said that since the car is a two-seater “we’ve always wanted to build a campaign around couples and love." Each of the two Smart ForTwos’ locations was shared via live social media updates. 

Honda launched an Instagram Direct program on Valentine’s Day, wherein people can collaborate on a song that will pressed on a limited-edition, heart-shaped LP. Users can post photos or videos to Instagram of things they love about the holiday and use a #LoveToday caption. Their responses will then be incorporated into the lyrics of the track used in the Honda Civic “Today Is Pretty Great” campaign featuring the band Vintage Trouble. 

Honda will give the LP to the first 500 users. The LP will also be included in the band's new Vintage Trouble single, per Honda. 

Said Alicia Jones, manager of Honda & Acura social marketing at American Honda Motor Co., Inc.: "Our recent #LoveToday hashtag from our Civic campaign was the perfect way to extend the love theme into Valentine's Day." 

The Torrance, Calif.-based American Honda last month launched “One More Thing to Love About Today,” an ad campaign touting the 2014 Civic Coupe that is intended to focus on optimism.