Agent vs. Agent: State Farm & DDB Chicago

por Dasha Ovsyannikova
DDB Chicago
Publicidade/serviço completo/integração
Chicago, Estados Unidos
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Katie Bero
Creative Director DDB

Brian Culp
Director criativo DDB Chicago
 

Tell us about your role in the creation of this work.

We are the creative team behind the campaign.

Give us an overview of the campaign—what is it about?

Agent vs. Agent is a continuation of last year’s football campaign, where Aaron Rodgers’ jealous sports agent, Gabe Gabriel, attempts to reign supreme over his State Farm agent. This year Gabe starts off big by trying to make Aaron jealous with his new client, Patrick Mahomes.

 

Tell us about the details creative brief—what did it ask?

Basically, to create a season 2 where we continued to build up the personal relationship between Aaron and his State Farm agent while Gabe goes off the rails with insecurity. Oh, and also introduce league MVP Patrick Mahomes into the mix. Minor detail.

Which insight led to the creation of this piece of work?

State Farm is all about personal service, and their agents are the literal embodiment of that. When we tried to bring that to life with Aaron, we realized that he actually has two agents in his life, State Farm and his sports agent. Once we created Gabe Gabriel, that opened up a really interesting and extensive storyline that could be told across a ton of media channels, and easily introduce new characters like Mahomes.

 

Can you share with us any alternative ideas (if any) for this campaign? Why was this idea chosen?  

This is season 2 of this campaign, so this was the only idea on the table. We did explore other story lines, like Gabe returning from a spiritual journey and trying to repair his (self-inflicted) tumultuous relationship with Aaron’s State Farm agent, Patrick.

What was the greatest challenge that you and your team faced during development?

We knew Patrick Mahomes was going to be a (very welcome) addition to this year’s work, so figuring out how to bring him into the world without feeling forced took some time.

What did you enjoy most about seeing this campaign through? Did you learn anything new from the experience?

We really loved getting to integrate Patrick Mahomes into season 2. It’s always exciting to add a fresh face, and when that fresh face happens to be the league MVP, it’s even more fun. Plus, we didn’t have to spend the time like we did last year setting up the characters and relationships, so we were able to just dive in.

Where do you see this campaign going in the future?

We’d love to be able to continue to expand on this world and forward the relationships between Gabe, the QBs, and Mahomes’ & Rodgers’ two State Farm agents. Like any emotion, jealousy can’t last forever, so we think there’s room to forward the narrative.