The Real Heroes Of Your Marketing

Posted 20 December By Hanju Lee—Life Management—No Comments

The Real Heroes Of Your Marketing

In a year where BOS Media spent so much time talking about stories, it makes sense that this week our Best Of 2021 series highlights a great moment in storytelling.

Just a reminder, over the next few weeks we’ll be celebrating some of my favorite moments in marketing and business. Hopefully taking this time to learn from the best will inspire us as we look ahead to the coming year.

When it comes to commercials, I’ll always give you extra points if you can move my emotions, and today’s winner definitely brought tears to my eyes.

My vote for Best Commercial of 2021 is “Toyota: Jessica Long’s Story | Upstream”

First of all, everything about this looks beautiful. It feels like a movie, and the way the water connects each moment of what led her to becoming a Paralympic swimmer is a powerful visual.

But you might be wondering, “What does this have to do with Toyota??” That’s exactly the point. No one really cares about the Prius’s gas mileage (although if gas prices don’t go down, that might start being a bigger deal haha).

All year long we’ve been saying, the best marketing is about MAKING SOMEONE ELSE THE HERO. People don’t connect with companies who talk about how great they are – the key is for your customers to feel like they’re the great ones.

I loved reading up about Jessica’s own reaction to the commercial. She said it’s rare for her to get emotional, but that seeing the spot got the tears flowing and “perfectly captures her life’s story in one minute.” Here’s how she summed it up:

“There is hope and strength in all of us and more than ever (this pandemic year), we need hope. I hope people see my story and they feel inspired to do that thing that they’ve been scared of – that thing no doubt is kind of scary but then they realize that they’ve had the strength all along.”

It sounds a lot like the line at the end of the commercial: “We believe there is hope and strength in all of us.” But hearing it in her words, it’s basically the opposite of a marketing slogan. It’s a true story.

Here’s to finding a story that will touch the hearts of our customers and help them be the hero in 2022. “It might not be easy, but it’ll be amazing.”