Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback and 2019 Super Bowl MVP, is known for his risk-taking play on the gridiron, but he wasn’t taking any chances with COVID-19. That included a scheduled live-action commercial shoot for Kansas City-based CommunityAmerica Credit Union. That’s why Denver-based creative agency Cactus made the pivot to animation, bringing in Nexus Studios, Los Angeles/London, and director Robertino Zambrano to help reimagine their creative concept as an elegantly illustrated look at the evolution of Mahomes as a player and the Kansas City community of which he has become a major part.
The spot, entitled “Rising Into Something Greater,” broke last night (9/10) during the NFL season-opener between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans.
The black-and-white 2D, pencil sketch animation style :30, imbued only with red (the Chiefs’ color) and the CommunityAmerica logo, communicates elegance, beauty and power all at once. The copy, voiced by Mahomes, connects the narrative dots between his rise with the Chiefs to the rise of the people and community of Kansas City.
The shift in strategy, however unscheduled it was, actually helped make the work better, said Brian Watson, Cactus’ executive creative director. “We were already at the point where we had our original batch of live-action concepts ready to present the client when the COVID-19 shutdown hit. At that point, no one knew what the next few months would hold, but we knew we needed to develop a contingency plan. We created an entirely new batch of concepts but ultimately ended up going with the same script from our original idea, but with a completely reimagined way to bring it to life visually. As much as we liked the original vision for the spot, we ended up feeling like the animated version of the spot was even stronger.”
Watson added, “It’s about the power of what can happen when people come together and support one another through life’s changes and challenges because that’s exactly what CommunityAmerica exists to do for their members and their community. I can’t imagine a more powerful and important message to be putting out into the world right now.”
