state farm

feelin' kinda lebron

Jon and I were asked to extend our "Feelin' Kinda Sunday" campaign for the NFL Playoffs in a bigger, more impactful way.
Enter LeBron James, who was about to be a free agent and also happened to be a highly touted high school wide receiver.

To create some buzz we crafted the short teaser below, which aired a week ahead of the 60-second commercial and was soon
re-posted all over the web, with some fans speculating that LeBron was releasing a rap album, others claiming LeBron was
retiring and still others convinced that LeBron would be wrestling with WWE. Really.

But soon, the full commercial aired, ending speculation but sparking new debate about LeBron’s football skills everywhere from
ESPN to Deadspin, NBC Sports and sneaker blogs like Hypebeast. An entrepreneurial store even tried to sell a fake LeBron Browns
jersey online. What’s more, a year after the spot aired, USA Today felt compelled to get then Browns coach Eric Mangini’s thoughts
on LeBron’s football viability — “I think he should come on down.” The Browns should have been so lucky. 

Also, I got a wife out of it.

Here is some behind-the-scene footage.

This is some press coverage we got from ESPN's First Take and SportsCenter.

Eight years later in late 2016,  it's still being talked about– this time on Bill Simmons short lived HBO show, Any Given Wednesday.
Simmons said, the fictional signing of Lebron was the greatest thing to ever happen to the Cleveland Browns.

Special Edition LeBron cards given out at State Farm Agent Offices.

Press

Even 11 months after the spot originally aired it was still stirring up talk.

This AP story went out and was included in Sporting News and many local papers.

Deadspin was one of the first to cover the story and syndicated it across the Gawker network

The story made it out of the sports world and into the hip-hop and sneaker communities.

Some stores even started selling LeBron browns jerseys online, inspired by the State Farm commercial.

CREDITS:
GCD: John Seibert
CD: David Shih
ACD/ART DIRECTOR: Alex Zamiar
ACD/WRITER: Jonathan Richman
ACCOUNT: Veronica Carr
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Liat Ebersohl
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Epoch Films
DIRECTOR: Stacy Wall