This commercial opens with a craftsman carefully carving from clay and painting figurines of three basketball players, Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, and Tim Duncan. After completing three such characters the craftsman goes to the floor, opens a door and reaches through it. A dome shaped arena is shown as seen from the street. The hand of the man reaching through the floor appears above the dome, removes the top of the dome (with a lot of falling debris and a very surprised janitor) and places the figurines on the basketball court within the dome. As the statues’ feet touch the floor they come alive, staring around and at their new bodies with curious wonder. As the three players face each other, silent and confused, a basketball is dropped and bounces between them. The commercial concludes with the captions “Impossible is nothing” and the Adidas logo.
Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day, Inc Chuck McBride, executive creative director; Geoff Edwards, associate creative director/art director; Scott Duchon and John Patroulis, associate creative directors/copywriters; Jennifer Golub, executive producer; Andrea Bustabade, assistant producer. Production Company: Omaha Pictures, Santa Monica. Rupert Sanders, director; Jess Hall, DP; Eric Stern, executive producer; Chris Nelson, producer. Shot on stage at Culver City Studios, Culver City, Calf., and on location in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. Editorial: Whitehouse Post Productions, Santa Monica Neil Smith, editor. Postproduction: The Syndicate Beau Leon, colorist. Visual Effects: Method,Stan Winston Studio Cedric Nicolas, lead visual effects supervisor/visual effects shoot supervisor; Paul Hahn, producer/visual effects shoot supervisor; Neysa Horsburgh, executive producer; Katrina Salicrup, visual effects artist; James LeBloch, 3-D artist; Laurent Ledru, 3-D creative supervisor.,Models created by St
Toyota, Burrell, Director Paul Hunter and Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Prove EV Skeptics Wrong In “Haters Anthem”
Toyota and Chicago-based agency Burrell have launched the Toyota BEV Family Campaign: a series of spots that follow electric vehicle skeptics as they’re won over by the bZ, bZ Woodland, and C-HR, one by one.
The campaign’s hero spot, “Haters Anthem,” opens on three skeptics portrayed as puppets, each one doubtful and vocal about it, who are converted into Toyota BEV believers after getting behind the wheel. When they convert, the puppets transform into their human selves.
To build them, Burrell partnered with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, which designed and built five custom puppets over six weeks, each with intricate mechanisms for unique arm and foot movements. A dedicated hairdresser ensured curly locs, fades, and twists were executed precisely and matched across both the puppet and human versions of each character. An all-Black puppeteer team, led by puppet captain Raymond Carr, handled performance and choreography throughout.
The work was directed by Paul Hunter via production house PRETTYBIRD, with “Haters Anthem” by Infinity Song, a four-sibling soft rock band signed to Roc Nation.
Burrell’s creative is grounded in a real audience insight: Black consumers have been underserved by the EV category, and nobody has built a campaign that reflects their vision of what electric driving looks and feels like. This one does. The humor, the music, the puppetry, and the transformation are all in service of a single idea: get someone skeptical behind the wheel, and let the car close the deal.
“There’s a thin line between a skeptic and a hater, and we leaned into that energy instead of away from it,” said Tara DeVeaux, CEO of Burrell. “The puppets give us permission to be honest about the doubt, and the... Read More