The Journey
84 Lumber2017
The Journey is a 2017 90-second television commercial with a 5-minute-44-second online conclusion for 84 Lumber, created by Brunner, Pittsburgh.
The line
The will to succeed is always welcome here.
Why it works
A mother and her young daughter leave Mexico and head north on foot, by truck and by train, intercut with construction workers building something we never quite see. For its first Super Bowl ad, the family-owned 84 Lumber planned to show the ending on air: the pair reach a towering border wall, then find a door built into it. Fox would not clear the wall, so the brand, the agency Brunner and director Cole Webley turned the 90-second broadcast cut, "The Journey Begins," into a cliffhanger that sent viewers to Journey84.com for the full 5-minute-44-second film. It ran just before halftime of Super Bowl LI on February 5, 2017, and the company says the site took 300,000 requests in its first minute, briefly crashing. It is studied as censorship turned into a traffic driver, and as a lesson in risk: Brandwatch found it the night's most-mentioned advertiser, yet it placed 29th of 66 in Ad Meter. It won a One Show Bronze Pencil.
Techniques
- Storytelling A mother and daughter's journey north unfolds as a cliffhanger, with the ending at a door in a border wall held back.
- Participation Viewers must visit the brand's website to see how the story ends, so the broadcast spot works as a prompt to act.
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