Brand Film – “Live On”
Life Happens is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping consumers make smart insurance decisions to safeguard their loved ones.
The Challenge
The folks at Life Happens weren’t interested in metrics, they needed a video that hit the emotions.
The Approach
Much of our inspiration came from Life Happens previous campaign tagline, “Life insurance isn’t for the people who die. It’s for the people who live.” A strong and true statement, but we knew we could take it further. The real benefit of life insurance is that it enables your loved ones to “live on” after you’ve passed. That was the message we wanted to communicate, and the following is how we developed the idea…
Imagine for a moment that you’ve passed on. Would you want your loved ones to continue in misery? Or would you want them to continue on living life? The latter of course! The more we thought about this, the more we thought about all the important life lessons that parents pass on to their children to ensure their kids not only live on, but live well. And that’s when we started to imagine a story of a father reading to his daughter. But to really drive home the point, we knew that there had to be some sort of a twist…a positive one where the audience didn’t just walk away sad, but encouraged to do the same for their loved ones.
The Execution
In order to successfully tell this story, it was vitally important that the daughter never acknowledge the presence of her father…because remember, he’s not actually there. Working with child actors can make this a difficult feat, but that’s why you ALWAYS bring candy to set. ;)
We also spent a lot of time writing and designing the “Life is for Living” children’s book. Not only did it provide our little actress with something to focus on, but it provided Life Happens with a resource that they could then offer to families with children who have lost a parent or guardian.
We even created a 30 sec teaser that Life Happens is currently using as pre-roll.
The Result
"Holy smokes it’s killer!!!"
"Wow. Tingles…this is AMAZING."
"Literally cried! That was great. Maybe too close to home - pictured my daughter."
Plus, last we checked, our view count was half a million. :)
“Just wanted to let you know that the video is a home run! We’ve been showing it at meetings, trade conferences and in eblasts. People are tearing up; people are reaching out to talk to us about it and the list goes on. Thanks again on a job well done!”