Next, Balvin grows to gigantic proportions and handsets float down from the clouds as part of an AR game called “Catch My iPhone.” You can dig his latest single, “Dainties” (with Usher and DJ Khaled), on the soundtrack.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes clip:

Finally, though Balvin doesn’t scale the heights in the Spanish-language ad below, he does change his hair color. Good for him!

All components boast canny ties to pop culture. Bateman and Hayes’ chemistry cooks, as usual. It’s an effective quickie that doesn’t overstay its welcome or get OTT foolish.

Meanwhile, Balvin exudes considerable charm at his normal size, while Jodzilla politely refrains from chewing the scenery—literally—in the AR scenario.

Ogilvy developed the Bateman/Hayes spot. R/GA and The Community worked with Balvin on his tall tale and new do, respectively.

Gaming can be competitive, but above all it’s emotional. And nothing stirs the hottest, most primitive emotions in gaming like laggy internet. It can make the split-second difference between success and failure.

Rage quits are real. The hardware casualties sacrificed to this monster of grief are … incalculable.

To promote its service, dubbed best internet for gaming by PCMag, Verizon Fios partnered with Nate Hill, a pro Fortnite gamer for FaZe Clan. In classic gamer style, they don’t promote the service directly; instead, they troll gamers who don’t have it.

We give you the Unbreakable Controller.

There is something cathartic about watching fellow FaZe Clan members have at it in the most dramatic ways they can imagine—with bats, cars, even an earth-boring drill. It’s got to feel better than throwing your PC tower out the window, an act usually accompanied by the sinking feeling that you might need that again someday.

The controller was designed with a durable aluminum shell, and is surrounded by soft foam that absorbs impact. It was created in partnership with McCann and product designer Steven Brower of Brower Propulsion Laboratory, and its bright orange color is a direct mockery of the childlike tantrums that can possess a gamer when lag ruins everything.

The ad ends, “An unbreakable controller won’t solve your frustration. But Verizon Fios can.” It will be supported by deep dive editorial about the Unbreakable Controller in partnership with gaming websites like Kotaku, as well as with tech reviewers and other content creators, who will all get the chance to put the Unbreakable Controller to the test.

CREDITS

Verizon: 
Andrew McKechnie, SVP, Chief Creative Officer 
David Bowen, VP, Marketing Communications 
Colby Schneider, Director, Marketing Communications 
Olga Bermudez Paiva, Manager, Brand Creative 
Emily Plunkett Fleischer, Manager, Broadcast Production 

McCann NY Creative: 
Thomas Murphy, Co-Chief Creative Officer, North America 
Sean Bryan, Co-Chief Creative Officer, North America 
Matthew Curry, EVP, Deputy Chief Creative Officer 
Cristina Reina, SVP Executive Creative Director 
Alex Little, VP, Group Creative Director 
Karsten Jurkschat, SVP, Group Creative Director 
Rene Delgado, Associate Creative Director 
Colby Spear, Associate Creative Director  
Lerthon Theuma, Copywriter 
Joan Heo, Art Director 
LeAndra Langhorne, Copywriter 
Erika Casales, Art Director 

McCann NY Account: 
Dominic Whittles, EVP, Managing Director 
Liz Der, SVP, Executive Account Director 
Sue Han, SVP, Group Account Director 
Justin Perrelli, Account Director 
Jordan Hamilton, Account Supervisor 
Marguerite Daly, Account Supervisor 
Jessica Peterkins, Assistant Account Executive 

McCann NY Strategy: 
David Webster, EVP Executive Strategy Director 
Jennifer Peterson, SVP Executive Strategy Director 
Beth Windheuser, Senior Strategist 
Whitney Alexander, VP Strategy Director Social and Mobile 

McCann NY Production:  
Nathy Aviram, Chief Production Officer 
John McAdorey, SVP Executive Producer 
Brian Collins, Producer 
Laura Kellerman, Producer 
Jeannette Subero, Senior Innovation Producer 
Christine Lane, SVP Director of Innovation 
Amber Briscoe, Senior Innovation Producer 
Mihae Mukaida, Senior Innovation Producer 

McCann NY Project Management: 
Anne Denny, Project Management Director 
Holly McNally, Associate Project Manager 
Eliza Butts, Project Manager 

CRAFT Production: 
Theodore McFail, Digital Producer 
David Lillis, Tech Lead Display Ads 
Rich Goldstein, Executive Digital Producer 
Faiza Islam, Senior QA Engineer 
Puneet Oberoi, QA Engineer 
Jeffery Feder, Senior Developer 
Joseph Goldstein, QA Engineer 

McCann Business Managers: 
Anna Owens, Junior Business Manager  

Editorial: No6 Editorial & Finishing: 
Editor: Ryan Bukowski 
Assistant Editor: Alyce Muhammad 
Producer: Charlotte Delon 
Head of Production: Laura Molinaro 
Executive Producer: Corina Dennison 
Senior Flame Artist: Ed Skupeen 
Finishing Producer: Mark Reyes 

Audio Post: Sonic Union 
Mix Engineer: Brian Goodheart 
Producer: Nathanael Taylor 
Studio Director: Justine Cortale 

Brower Propulsion Laboratory R&D 
Steven Brower, Founder 

Photography: Giant Artists 
Photographer: Jessica Pettway 
Agent: Dana Eudy 
Producer: Lynda Goldstein 

BTS Video Production: MMXX 
Videographer: David Siev 

Media Agency: VM1 

Influencer Agency: Captiv8  

Packaging Production: Utley’s Inc.  

Talent Partner: FaZe Clan 

Branded Content: Kotaku 

Today, the Ad Council launches one of the largest public-education campaigns in U.S. history to encourage Covid-19 vaccine acceptance nationwide.

More than 300 brands, media companies, creative partners, medical experts and community organizations are engaged in the sweeping initiative, which is backed by some $500 million in donated media and talent.

Running across multiple platforms, ads tagged “It’s Up to You” urge viewers to get seek out accurate information about vaccines, heralding a return to pre-pandemic life once the nation reaches an adequate level of protection.

Creative styles run the gamut, ranging from Pereira O’Dell’s straightforward assurance that FDA-approved vaccines are safe and effective…

…to Google’s muscular drum-beat urging consumers to “Get the Facts!” about Covid-19 inoculations:

Pereira O’Dell helped develop the overarching “It’s Up to You” concept, with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The outreach targets the 40 percent of Americans who remain undecided about getting vaccinated, “centered on education and driven by research to move people from hesitancy to confidence,” Ad Council chief campaign development officer Michelle Hillman tells Muse. “It’s understandable to have questions about something new, like the Covid vaccines, and our platform takes an empathetic approach to ending the pandemic.”

As the team crunched data from different demographics, particularly the Black and Hispanic communities, “we saw a higher rate of hesitancy and lower confidence in the information available about the vaccines,” Hillman says.

This next ad from Joy Collective and Values Partnerships addresses Black concerns, with pastors and community leaders making a powerful pitch:

“We know that a ‘one size fits all’ message will not suffice, and that it must vary by community,” Hillman says. “There is deep-seated distrust, particularly among communities of color, and we need to make sure we address it with relevant content and information.”

To that point, here’s another poignant, prayerful appeal from Joy Collective:

Melding science and faith is a cornerstone of the push, which also features a National Faith Steering Committee comprising 20 leaders from Hispanic and Black communities.

“When we tested the base campaign idea, we found that it succeeds across cultures and motivates the vaccine-hesitant to want to get more informed,” Hillman says. “Some PSAs may be more fact based in nature, while others may lean on emotional moments that we have all been missing amid the pandemic to inspire audiences to educate themselves about the vaccine.”

Below, Verizon’s split-screening evocatively contrasts pandemic existence and pre-Covid reality, suggesting a bright future:

Most elements drive viewers to GetVaccineAnswers.org for more information. Ad Council partners for the push include the Black Coalition Against Covid-19, Color of Change, the NAACP, the National Urban League and the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, among many others.

Online efforts include a Twitter custom hash-emoji; Spotify audio PSAs; and “It’s Up to You” messaging from prominent TikTok creators.

An earlier, unrelated effort from Mischief @ No Fixed Address, dubbed “Because of This,” took a similar tack to tout vaccinations, but “It’s Up to You” is far more comprehensive.

So far, about 14 percent of Americans have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine. Experts including Biden Administration chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci believe upwards of 75 percent of the population must develop immunity, preferably through vaccinations, before life can return to some semblance of normal.

The spot has all the earmarks of a Super Bowl commercial, but T-Mobile says it won’t air on Sunday’s telecast. In posts on Twitter and YouTube, the company claims the spot has been “banned,” apparently because of the NFL’s partnership with Verizon.

“Even after editing, the spot was still banned ‘based on the … protected telco rights deal,’ ” the brand wrote on YouTube. “So, watch and decide for yourself … what does the ‘official telco sponsor’ not want you to see?”

“This ad will not air on Sunday. Why was it banned?” T-Mobile wrote on Twitter. Meanwhile, CEO Mike Sievert posted several times on Twitter himself, also saying the spot was “banned.” And yet the Today show debuted the spot Friday morning, saying it was indeed a Super Bowl commercial.

Well this is fun… one of our @TMobile commercials was BANNED from the big game on Sunday. Want to see it anyway…? ?

You’re in luck! We’re giving it to the @TODAYshow to air today at 8am ET!! #TheGOATin5G

— Mike Sievert (@MikeSievert) February 5, 2021

Here it is! Our spot that was BANNED from the big game. Good, right??

I mean why would their “telco sponsor” not want you to see this!!? ?? #TheGOATin5G pic.twitter.com/923IlYQgAF

— Mike Sievert (@MikeSievert) February 5, 2021

We’ve reached out to both telcoms for comment. T-Mobile has a long history of irreverent marketing stunts, so its claim that the spot was ever in consideration for a Super Bowl slot seems dubious. It’s also possible that Verizon has secured a new category exclusivity on the game—having significantly expanded its relationship with the NFL this year.

Verizon is introducing in-stadium 5G solutions for fans attending in-person in Tampa, delivering immersive and interactive viewing experiences, and creating the first-ever 5G Stadium in Fortnite Creative—among other efforts (including an in-game spot).

Cancel the art heist!

“The Met Unframed,” a multifaceted interactive/AR activation from Verizon and UNIT9, made for mobile devices, lets you place priceless treasures from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in your own home. Or on the street. Or in any environment you choose. As long as you’re glued to your smartphone screen when you view the paintings and sculptures, that is.

First, Emanuel Leutze’s “Washington Crossing the Delaware” traverses a bustling thoroughfare:

Next, elements of the Cloisters’ 500-year-old Unicorn Tapestries spring to life:

Aw, Corny thinks he’s a Corgi! (Hope someone brought a scoop to pick up after the little guy.)

Beyond such bits of fun, “Unframed” provides virtual tours of the Met’s galleries, where you can learn about more than 50 famous exhibits and play art-related games that unlock more content (as well as Verizon pitches).

The project touts the carrier’s 5G Ultra-Wideband service, and it’s accessible across all 4G and 5G phones. This minute-long promo provides a feel for what “Unframed” has to offer:

Geared for our pandemic age, when a leisurely day at the museum doesn’t fit into most folks’ schedule, “Unframed,” both compelling and playful, packs in a lot of material across multiple layers. At times it can feel overwhelming, demanding considerable effort to fully appreciate.

That said, the soothing, spacey graphics and ambient soundtrack feel in step with the regal museum motif. Plus, you’ll learn a lot. And it’s a kick to see the art come to life in amusing ways.

At one point, water spills onto the virtual museum floor from Frederic Edwin Church’s “Heart of the Andes”:

Grab a mop!

And here’s POTUS1 again, rushing across the river in kicky 3-D just in time for this week’s inauguration:

Sure, institutions around the world, including the Met, began boosting their online presence months ago as Covid took hold. But as a branded effort, “Unframed” leverages Verizon’s tech to boost the bandwidth, so to speak, jazzing up the notion of a guided tour with sundry bells and whistles. (If the sales pitches seem a tad artless, well, at least you don’t have to pay for a ticket.)

From the Met’s point of view, the campaign keeps the venue’s collections in the public eye and spurs interest at a time when attendance has understandably diminished. Museum director Max Holbein describes the campaign as an extension of the institution’s 150-year mission “to connect people to art and ideas, and to one another—something we’ve found to be more powerful than ever over these last months of isolation and uncertainty.”

At the same time, Verizon whets users’ appetite for 5G through an immersive product demo, says Michael Wente, head of in-house agency 140 at the telecommunications giant. “Since access to in-person art has been so limited over the last year, this felt like the perfect time to launch this experience,” he says.

CREDITS

Production Company – UNIT9
Mindy Lubert – Head of Production
Giacomo Vigliar – Executive Producer
Jason Legge – Senior Producer
Jakub Jakubowski – Games Director
Evi Nathanaili – Project Manager
Karol Goreczny – Art Director
Scott Ashmore – Technical Director
Max Rusan – Technical Lead
Luc Palombo – Lead Developer
William To – Front-end Developer
Julian Faas – Motion Designer
Mathew Borrett – 3D Environment Artist
Shaun Larkin – 3D Artist
Dani Valkova – Sound Designer
Isabelle Kim – UX Lead
Luis Chique – 3D Animator
James Stokes – QA Lead
Alex Hughes – Copywriter
Davide Bianca – Creative Director
Yifei Chai – Creative Director
Romain Demongeot – Creative Director

Verizon
Diego Scotti – EVP, Chief Marketing Officer
Andrew McKechnie – SVP, Chief Creative Officer
Mike Wente – VP, Creative Marketing & Operations
Marc Sobier – Executive Creative Director
Tofer Moran – Creative Director, Art
Melissa Avery – Creative Director, Copy
Viktor Angwald – Associate Creative Director, Copy
Gus Marulanda – Associate Creative Director, Art
Craig Ward – Design
Mike Palese – Art Director
Stephen Bashore – Senior Designer
Robert Beck – Managing Director, Integrated Production
Lizzie Haberman – Executive Producer
Jose Diaz – Senior Producer
Deb Horvath – Head of Business Affairs
Rhys Stover – Editor
David Dorsey – Animator
Anna Laguna – Animator
Andrea Huemmer – Account Director
Danny Alvarado – Associate Account Director
Alana Visconti – Account Manager
Sangeet Pillai – Director, Strategy & Planning
Jordan Weil – Senior Strategist
Andrew Shafer- Director, Brand Marketing
Baanie Singh- Mgr, Brand Marketing
Marika Shaub – Social Strategy Lead
Marc Kelly – Mgr, Social Activation
Emily Vicker – Director, Corporate Communications
Katie Magnotta – Mgr, Corporate Communications
Lizzie Angley – Mgr, Corporate Communications

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Max Hollein – Director
Kenneth Weine – Vice President, External Affairs and Chief Communications Officer
Sofie Andersen, Senior Manager of Digital Content & Editorial, Digital Department
Annie Bailis – Senior Manager of Media Relations, External Affairs
Emily Blumenthal – Educator in Charge, Education
Skyla Choi – Studio Manager, Digital Department
Kathryn Galitz – Managing Educator, Museum Teaching and Volunteer Administration, Education
Scott Geffert – General Manager for Advanced Imaging
Brinda Kumar – Assistant Curator, Modern and Contemporary
Claire Lanier – Senior Manager of Social Media, External Affairs
Tricia Robson – Senior Project Manager, Directors Office
Micol Spinazzi – Associate Publicist, External Affairs

Ode To Joy
Samantha Lazarus Levin, Executive Producer

As it’s been for so many companies, 2020 has been an eventful and challenging year for Verizon—as it implements and advertises 5G, and manages its own workflows and customer needs amid the pandemic. In this episode of On Brand, we speak to Andrew McKechnie, the telecom’s chief creative officer, who tells us about Verizon’s creative approach to promoting 5G, and how Covid accelerated the more humanizing approach the brand has taken in its advertising for several years now. He also discusses the critical value of diversity efforts, and what he looks for in his agencies—having come from the agency side himself originally.

Timestamps:

• 1:31 – How WFH is going for Andrew and his team.
• 3:15 – How Covid accelerated Verizon’s attempts to humanize itself and its messaging.
• 5:16 – Verizon’s overall strategy for promoting 5G.
• 8:04 – Why the brand made a documentary, Speed of Thought, about 5G.
• 14:53 – A look at the Chris Rock iPhone spot, cobranded with Verizon.
• 18:10 – Andrew’s commitment to diversity initiatives.
• 21:18 – How his long career at agencies informs his work on the client side.
• 25:16 – What Verizon looks for in its agencies.
• 28:17 – What the next six months look like for Verizon.

Every Thursday at 4 p.m., Clio president Nicole Purcell and I chat with top brand marketers—most of whom are still working from home—about the value of creativity, what they want from their agency and solution partners, how they’re shepherding their brands through Covid and beyond, and more. See all the On Brand episodes here.

If you’re a brand marketer who’d like to take part in the series, please get in touch.

“Remember when you tried to watch Bigger & Blacker, and by the time it downloaded, I was older and thinner?” Chris Rock quips.

“5G Just Got Real,” conceived by TBWAMedia Arts Lab with director Wayne McClammy of Hungry Man, is the latest for Apple’s iPhone 12 Pro, and Verizon 5G with ultra wideband. It’s fast-paced, sardonically cheerful, and supersaturated. And Rock—who feels like an old friend we haven’t seen in a long, long time—guides us through it with as much bemusement as we feel.

In terms of aesthetic, we’re reminded of Sony’s early Bravia work, when HD made us feel like we were all seeing color for the first time. Half of this ad is easily about the splashy backdrops that Rock shuttles through, almost gratuitously: CGI giraffes graze his lawn. While crossing a pond, a shark leaps up to attack a tropical bird. His personal cinema is open-air, plush red armchairs aglow against the greenery. 

And in a garden speckled with (could those be Bravia?!) balls, reps of the Gen-Z set consume esports from a tiny parthenon, Olympians glowing with smug youth.

“Remember when you found out esports was a real thing, and kids half your age were making twice your salary?” he asks.

“Yup,” the youthy Borg says in unison without bothering to look up.

“Remember when I told you to clean your room?!” he demands, head whipping around to face his daughter. This is the kind of cameo people of a certain age get excited about, like when Will Smith plays alongside his son, or Beyoncé features Blue Ivy in a music video.

(It’s evidence of time’s relentlessness, and our predictability, that we catch these connections but weren’t all that interested when our parents reminded us of the people who conceived Drew Berrymore or Kate Hudson.)

“Nope,” she replies.

“You’ll remember when your allowance is due! You never forget that!” Rock retorts with the good-natured fatigue of a parent whose only real remaining weapon is passive aggression.

Because in addition to the visual orgy, designed to showcase 5G’s quality, this ad is about two other things. It hosts a bevvy of topical keywords, from esports to Janelle Monáe to the NFL, whose games you can now view through five different camera angles (“Football just got 5G real!”). It’s as if somebody checked Google Trends and printed out everything that wasn’t a conspiracy theory.

This makes the work feel topical, but the obvious name-dropping emphasizes the next point: Chris Rock’s gotten older … and so have we, the millennials who remember him before he was, like us, just another tired parent who can barely keep up.

The entire premise—”Remember when…?”—is a way of showcasing 5G’s boggling speeds by reminding us of all the stuff we’ve already lived through, stuff kids today will never know or understand. “Remember when the song of the summer took the whole summer to download?” is our “I walked to school in five miles of snow.”

In fact, the ad’s very start ensures you don’t miss the oddly jovial memento mori: “Hi, I’m Chris Rock,” Rock says, holding up the new iPhone 12. “Oh, it’s not about me. I get it. No, no, no, zoom in on it!”—this last to whoever’s holding the camera. 

We’re reminded that our stars aren’t today’s stars, not the way they were when we were young. And this exchange with someone off-camera also nods to the conversational misfires that happen when people of different generations try to get on the same page over technology. (Another unintended sign of age: How far we’ve drifted from the days when Apple was the kind of brand people just understood, and that barely required a learning curve. Oh, Steve Jobs. You were mean, but we miss you.)

The ad launched after Apple’s “Hi, Speed” event yesterday, when it revealed its lineup of iPhone 12 devices with 5G tech. It also promotes Verizon’s just-launched nationwide 5G network, which really is impressive. We can still remember when it took a week to download a movie, and kids today will barely remember lag.

The piece ends with Rock in a tux, flanked by a live band and fireworks, while people on his phone comment live, on a platform that looks like Twitch. “5G just got real!” he exclaims, and we pan away.

CREDITS

Client: Apple, iPhone
Client: Verizon
Agency: TBWAMedia Arts Lab
Director: Wayne McClammy
Production Company: Hungry Man

“Other cable providers charge extra fees, Verizon Fios doesn’t,” the brand says. “Mix and match on Fios, and know exactly what you’re paying every time—no extra fees, no surprises.” 

The campaign is running online and in social.

CREDITS

Verizon:
Diego Scotti, Chief Marketing Officer
Andrew McKechnie, SVP, Chief Creative Officer
Dave Bowen, VP, Marketing Communications
Colby Schneider, Director, Marketing Communications
James Hogan, Manager, Brand Creative
Olga Bermudez Paiva, Manager, Brand Creative
Emily Plunkett Fleischer, Broadcast Production

McCann NY:
Thomas Murphy, Co-Chief Creative Officer, New York
Sean Bryan, Co-Chief Creative Officer, New York
Matthew Curry, EVP, Deputy Chief Creative Officer
Dan Donovan, EVP, Deputy Chief Creative Officer
Nic Wehmeyer, Creative Director
Cody Timore, Associate Creative Director
John McAdorey, EVP, Executive Producer
Dave Herman, SVP, Executive Producer
Eric DJ BunnyEars Johnson, SVP Executive Music Producer
Dominic Whittles, EVP, Managing Director
Liz Der, SVP, Executive Account Director
Sue Han, SVP, Group Account Director
Justin Perrelli, Account Director
Christine Kappesser, Account Supervisor
Jordan Hamilton, Account Executive
Eloy Cano, Assistant Account Executive
Jennifer Peterson, SVP Executive Strategy Director
Daniel Lammon, Strategy Director
Krista Spindler, Project Manager
 
Production:
Hey Wonderful
Sam Cadman, Director
Michael Di Girolamo, Founder, Managing Director
Sarah McMurray, EP, Partner
Earl McDaniel, EP, Head of Production
JD Davidson, Producer

Editorial: No6 Editorial & Finishing
Corina Dennison, Executive Producer
Laura Molinaro, Senior Producer 
Amanda Slamin, Senior Producer 
James Duffy, Editor
Patrick Saxer, Assistant Editor
John Shea, Senior Flame Artist
Mark Reyes, Flame Assist
Stephen Picano -colorist

Audio Post: Sonic Union
Justine Cortale – Producer
Steve Rosen – Mixer
David Papa – Mixer

Music: JSM
Joel Simon – CEO/CCO – Co-Composer
Jeff Fiorello – Executive Producer
Rebeca Riter – Co-Composer
Andrew Manning – Producer
Norm Felker – Producer

Verizon’s role in emergencies, of course, is to connect the phone calls between those in need and the first responders. It’s an important story, and one Verizon feels stands out amid the spectacle and comedy of most Super Bowl campaigns. 

“A lot of NFL players have been impacted by injuries and tragedies throughout their lives. It’s a very big driving force of who they are today,” Andrew McKechnie, chief creative officer at Verizon, tells Muse. “It’s very emotional, and it’s a nice side to the NFL that we don’t often see. We wanted to tell that story.” 

At the same time, it’s a story of the first responders themselves. Thus, the short films tell both sides. We hear from the NFL players themselves (as well as their families) and the first responders who helped them. 

“They sacrifice everything. It’s a really tough job,” says McKechnie. “They’re not paid millions of dollars to run onto a field to play an NFL game. So there’s a really interesting dynamic between the two sides of the stories. And hearing a little bit more about this notion of service—maybe in society and our community we should be embracing more of that.” 

Finding the Players

Having tracked down disaster victims and first responders for last year’s spot, the team at McCann embraced the much bigger scale of this year’s project. From desktop research, they found only two players—yet they sold the idea through to Verizon before even finding the rest. 

“We knew there were more out there,” says McCann creative director Alex Little. “There’s 1,600 NFL players in the league; 40,000 Americans every year wouldn’t be here without first responders. So based on our bad math, we said, ‘We can figure this out.'” 

Before long, they had 11 players—AJ McCarron, Carlos Watkins, Carson Tinker, Adrian Colbert, Harvey Langi, Clay Matthews, Naz Jones, Mark Andrews, De’Angelo Henderson, Ben Jones and Ricardo Allen—and one NFL head coach, Anthony Lynn of the Los Angeles Chargers, signed up for the campaign.

The agency set up film shoots with each player, along with the first responders who’d helped them. They also shot some re-enactment scenes, and interviewed family members. Constructing the spots came naturally from the stories themselves. 

“Being in the room for all the interviews, we had a pretty good grasp of where the emotion came from, and the things these guys described and remembered that we could construct the narrative around,” says McCann creative director Karsten Jurkschat. 

Most of the films start with a cold open, teasing a bit of the story, followed by a title sequence that links all the pieces together. Then, the films backtrack and tell the full story. 

“Obviously, we were a little bit worried they’d start to feel similiar,” says Jurkschat. “But all their personalities are so different, and the way they recount the stories is so different. Some players are really emotional, and some are quite matter-of-fact about it. And we had quite a wide range of accidents in the end. So we found it wasn’t a problem to keep them feeling fresh.” 

The hardest part was convincing the first responders to be on camera and take credit for saving the players.

“They were like, ‘Oh, I’m part of a bigger team. This is not just me. There’s the people at the hospital, the people who answered the call. I’m one of 50.’ Convincing them was the trickiest element,” says Little. 

McCarron and Watkins

Two of the standout pieces, in the end, turned out to be the ones with AJ McCarron and Carlos Watkins. 

McCarron, the Oakland Raiders quarterback, was just a child when he flew off his father’s jetski headfirst into a dock. 

“His first responder, Chip, is just so emotionally affected, still, to this day, which you can tell in some of his cutaways,” says Jurkschat. “We interviewed AJ’s mom. If these people didn’t do their job, she wouldn’t have a son at all. The NFL focus is great, and that’s where we came into it, but in that story I think you get to the bigger point of, ‘Yeah, they wouldn’t be on a team. They wouldn’t be here. They wouldn’t be playing football.'” 

Watkins, a defensive tackle for the Houston Texans, lost a close friend in a car accident. His recounting of the story is almost unbearably sad. 

“That was probably the most full-on interview for all of us,” Jurkschat says. “I remember sitting in the room with the clients, and we were all tucked away so he couldn’t see us. He knew he wanted to tell the story of his friend, and he didn’t try to hide any of the emotion, which was really powerful. He told the story almost in honor of his friend. Everybody was just kind of sitting there in silence, crying along with him, which was a pretty incredible thing to be a part of. That was the second interview, I think, and that’s when it hit home for us—that this was going to be something pretty special.” 

A Different Kind of Super Bowl Ad

“The Team That Wouldn’t Be Here” is different from many Super Bowl campaigns not just because it tells heartfelt stories but also because it tells true stories. In their quest to entertain, not many Super Bowl ads lean into real life like this. 

“We all love seeing the funny ads, and it’s great for certain brands—whether it’s a new brand or a brand trying to reinvigorate itself,” says Verizon’s McKechnie. “For us, we’re very established. We want to make sure we’re conveying messages that we think are important to our broader communities—not only our 130 million customers but also the communities that we impact and work with every day. In particular, the first responders. We see the Super Bowl slightly differently in that respect. We’re having a more evergreen conversation around what first responders do, and using the Super Bowl as a lightning bolt to get the right attention on it.” 

The McCann creatives say they see Verizon as a brand that, unlike many, simply has something real to say. 

“Everyone else is scripting work and creating fictional worlds,” says Little. “When you have a great product like Verizon, it just works. You don’t have to script that. You don’t have to create a world around it and pretend.” 

Client and agency won’t reveal much about the commercial set to air during Sunday’s telecast, though Little did mention that “moving away from celebrities is really interesting as well. I won’t give away too much of what the ad is, but it just feels like a real story from a real person.” 

The scale and variety of creative materials in “The Team That Wouldn’t Be Here” is unusual. (McCann also designed a special NFL jersey honoring first responders—it’s all white, with a special logo and other details like the numbers done in reflective tape.) But to McKechnie, it’s a more modern way to approach a Super Bowl campaign, and certainly one that suits Verizon well. 

“I think you can’t put so much reliance on a 60-second TV spot to perform magic for you,” he says. “There are some spots that enter folklore as being the Super Bowl spot that everyone remembers, and I think that’s great. But to put that level of pressure on a 60-second or 30-second spot, I think, for me, it’s a slightly traditional approach. 

“When you think about a brand having a conversation versus just a campaign, and creating a longer narrative around the things we do, then I think you’ve got to approach it differently. We knew we had an amazing story to tell. For us, the Super Bowl is a moment to add another textual layer to that conversation.”