A young athlete is the big man on campus as he receives congratulations from his classmates and the community at large in this public service message sponsored by the U.S. Olympics Committee (USOC) and the Ad Council. Funding for the overall campaign is being provided over the next three years by U.S. Olympic Team sponsor Johnson & Johnson.
We open on a locker room where teammates congratulate Jake on a great game. In a nearby mirror, he sees that a pimple has sprouted on his forehead. It doesn’t seem at first like that big a deal.
Next, Jake is walking down the school halls to the cheering adulation of his fellow students. However, one classmate does a double take when he sees Jake’s forehead. The two exchange glances and their facial expressions reflect an awareness that something is amiss.
Jake then looks in the mirror of his hall locker and it appears that the pimple has grown. So too has his concern, which seems to be just more than the typical teen preoccupation with a zit and its consequences on one’s social life.
The spot then takes us into town where signs celebrating the state champion high school Vikings team and the exploits of Jake are everywhere.
We next see Jake at a pep rally. A teacher/coach looks at Jake’s forehead as the pimple has increased again in size.
Finally we’re at yet another rally where Jake is awarded the most valuable player trophy. The crowd cheers but as Jake comes up to accept the award, his coach turns away from him. The cheers give way to stark silence as the students see that a giant patch of acne in the form of an asterisk has formed on Jake’s forehead.
A voiceover relates, “Take steroids and people will eventually see you for what you really are: A fake, a fraud, an asterisk. Don’t be an asterisk.”
And end tag carries the website address DontBeAnAsterisk.com, accompanied by the logos for the Ad Council and the USOC.
Documentary chops “Asterisk” was directed by Nannette Burstein of bicoastal/international Hungry Man for TBWAChiatDay, New York. Burstein brought documentary chops to the project. She and Brett Morgen co-directed her first film On The Ropes and then The Kid Stays in the Picture. The former, which follows the lives of three boxers and their trainers, garnered an Oscar nomination for best documentary, won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance and received the DGA Award in the documentary category. The Kid Stays in the Picture chronicles the life of movie producer Robert Evans.
Burstein’s most recent documentary is American Teen, which follows five teenagers through their senior year of high school in a small Indiana town. The film earned her the directing award for documentaries at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Burstein’s documentary sensibilities lent themselves to the “Asterisk” story as we see the protagonist evolve from hero to a shameful embarrassment.
“Scarlet letter” “Being caught with steroids comes with absolute penalties. You’re off the team. Your scholarship is gone. Your hopes of going pro are possibly out the window,” said Gary Scheiner, executive creative director, TBWAChiatDay. “Our creative solution was to make teens understand that of all the outcomes of steroid use, fakeness is also considerably damaging. To illustrate this, we took a well-known icon already used in the world of sport, and turned it into our scarlet letter: ‘The Asterisk.'”
This marks the first time that the USOC and the Ad Council have teamed to raise awareness about the national issue of illegal performance-enhancing drugs both within and outside of sport. In addition to TV, the campaign entails radio, print and the Internet with PSAs driving traffic to the aforementioned DontBeAnAsterisk.com in order to learn more about steroid abuse, hear from professional athletes and find healthy alternative means to excel in athletics.
Kevin Byrne executive produced the “Asterisk” PSA for Hungry Man with Rich Krekian serving as producer. The DP was Adam Beckman.
The TBWAChiatDay creative team consisted of executive creative director Scheiner, associate creative directors Ron Castaldo and Jared Rubin, art director Einav Jacubovich, copywriter Melissa Pincus and producer Winslow Dennis.
Editor was Steve Bell of bicoastal Cosmo Street. Riot, New York, was the visual effects house.
