Wendy’s and The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Canada, have teamed up to promote adoption awareness and bring to light the 30,000 children in Canada’s foster care system waiting to find loving, adoptive families.
The non-profit charity created by Wendy’s late founder Dave Thomas, who was adopted, launched the website thisisthestoryofi.com and accompanying campaign video, which was produced by The Ebeling Group. Formatted as a two-minute animated music video with original music, “The Story of I'” follows the journey of “I” – a lonely orphaned child who wishes for love and finally finds it when he is adopted by new parents “F” and “M.” Together, along with an “A,” “L” and “Y” – they become a complete family unit.
The Ebeling Group enlisted Brazilian director Cadux to craft a memorable piece addressing the issue that can feel overwhelming and unsolvable. Taking inspiration from an original song, Cadux harnessed animation to illustrate the feelings and experiences of foster children awaiting adoption and the joy of finally finding a permanent home where they can thrive and grow. Cadux was particularly focused on one powerful moment in the narrative, “I knew we had something special when ‘i’ first meets his future parents. I wanted to make it feel like among all the people in the world you will find that special one.”
The collaborative campaign shines a spotlight on the mission of The Dave Thomas Foundation in a dynamic and sincere way; a meaningful step toward inspiring Canadians to consider the life-changing possibility of giving these parentless children the chance to spell out f-a-m-i-l-y.
Agency was MacLaren McCann, Canada.
DGA Spot Nominees: Lance Acord, Kim Gehrig, Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim, Andreas Nilsson, Ivan Zacharias
This year’s field of nominees for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award recognizing Outstanding Directorial Achievement for Commercials consists of a filmmaker who’s won the honor each of the two last years, another past winner, a five-time nominee, a helmer who’s just picked up his second career nod, and a duo garnering their very first Guild nomination.
The latter is the directorial team of Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim of production house PRETTYBIRD.
The director now going for her third consecutive DGA Award win is Kim Gehrig of Somesuch.
The other past winner is Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks. Nilsson won the honor in 2016 and now has three career nominations.
Lance Acord of Park Pictures just earned his fifth career DGA Award nomination in the commercials category--his four prior nods coming in 2004, 2012, 2013 and 2017.
And scoring his second career DGA nod is Ivan Zacharias of SMUGGLER who was previously nominated in 2023.
The work
Gehrig earned her third straight nomination on the strength of three entries: SiriusXM’s “A Life in Sound” for agency Uncommon; Nike’s “Am I A Bad Person?” for Wieden+Kennedy, and the Apple client-direct spot titled “Find Your Friends.”
Nilsson’s latest nomination came for Hennessy’s “Board Game” out of Wieden+Kennedy London; Andrex’s “First Office Poo” for FCB London; the client-direct Apple spot “One More”; and Virgin Media’s “Whizzer” for VCCP London.
Acord’s fifth career nod is for Volkswagen’s “An American Love Story” out of agency Johannes Leonardo.
Zacharias’ second career nomination is for Apple’s “Flock” out of TBWAMedia Arts Lab.
And the duo of Tim Heidecker and Eric... Read More