Bubba Wallace
The Problem: Root was a relatively new and unknown player in a massive industry with massive advertising saturation.
The Action: I led the creative development of the partnership between Root and NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, based on shared values and a bold creative vision.
The Result: The campaign earned over 3 billion earned impressions, despite a minimal media spend.
Launching the partnership
As a disruptive company with a mission to bring progress to an industry resistant to it, Root found a natural partner in NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace. In fall of 2020, I led the creative development of our bold brand film Progress Owes No Apology, announcing our values-driven partnership. The film launched two weeks before the 2020 general election, when polarizing politics had hit a fever pitch.
The campaign as a whole earned over 3 billion impressions for Root, almost entirely through organic traffic.
Reception
Despite a minimal media spend to support the film’s release, Progress Owes No Apology earned over 400 million impressions within the first few weeks. Over 200 individual news stories were written about it, including coverage on Fast Company, Adweek, BET, Yahoo! Sports, and more. A featured news story and interview with Bubba on MSNBC played over thirty seconds of the film.
After the film, the campaign grew as a commitment to Root’s values of progress and fairness.
The partnership wasn’t developed for empty virtue signaling. Root demonstrated its commitment to progress through the Drop the Score initiative, a nationwide campaign to remove the discriminatory factor of credit score from auto insurance pricing.
Throughout the campaign and our NASCAR racing season with Bubba, we continued to develop bold creative based in our values. I directed the Love Over Hate video, a powerful cel-animated representation of Bubba’s open letter to President Trump. I also led the creative around our Throwback Race, where we honored Wendell Scott, the first black NASCAR driver to win a Cup Series race.
We leveraged our team’s capabilities to build eye-catching creative throughout the race season. Our unique NFTs, paint scheme reveals, hero cards, and more broke records for social engagement.
