The heritage campaign can be a fickle beast. Veer too far to one end and you have a sappy story, tailor-made to make your mom cry. Veer too far to the other and you have as cliche a filmed montage as there ever was, unfeeling and borderline worthy of its own drinking game.
It’s a challenge we are always game to take on.
For the 2012 Olympics in London, Visa wanted to create a campaign centered around elite athletes. We created over a dozen global commercials starring said athletes set against the ever-powerful voice of God, er, we mean Morgan Freeman.
The campaign centered around Olympic excellence, sourcing international footage from Michael Phelps’ record-setting victory in Beijing to Sudanese track star Lopez Lomong, who ran away from his life as a child soldier to go on to place in the Olympic games.
Working alongside TBWA/Chiat/Day who concepted the irreverent campaign, we worked around the clock to deliver over a dozen spots in a timeframe that might make others shake their heads in fear. But in our grand tradition of loving the word “yes” and pushing ourselves to the brink (not to mention the motivation we found in these clips themselves) we are both proud and humbled by the results of “Go World.”
Watch the full campaign above. It will make 2016 in Rio not seem so terribly far away.
Los Angeles
