NEW YORK CITY, October 17, 2007 - Some people's objective in life is to appear in the most watched comedy of the day on YouTube*. Others want to be the star kicker for a college football team. For a guy named Bergwood, the first dream has already come true...now if he can only get that right foot into shape...

Currently ranking in the Top 10 and the 54th highest rated comedy video on YouTube, "Intro" is only the first of many in a viral ad campaign via Leo Burnett Chicago, sponsored by Allstate, directed by T.H.E.M.'s Jim Tozzi, and starring a thirtysomething aspiring college football hero named Bergwood.

The short comedy pieces, which, in addition to "Intro," include: "Toeism," "Miss Mandy," "Fan," "Play The Wind," and "Backstory" feature the singularly dedicated Bergwood doing everything from toe exercises and ballet to simulating game day wind conditions in pursuit of his dream.

"The agency came to us with a project for Allstate that was committed to an entertaining story rather than an ad for insurance," recalls Tozzi. "Obviously the logo and name are all over this, but it's atypical in my view, and the association is that  insurance is entertaining, which is a nice thought." Tozzi added that in today's adspace, "everybody is still trying to figure out what works, and I think this does."

Tony Harding, Founder and Executive Producer of T.H.E.M., points out that "one of the complaints industrywide right now is that the viral platform by default compromises the production value. We're not of that mind, and our experience with TV has allowed us to disprove the theory."

Since its inception last year, T.H.E.M. has been developing its own longform content. Shooting Reality Series teasers, pilots and documentaries, and pitching shows to several networks including NBC, VH-1, TLC, SPIKE, FUEL and others. "Producing Reality TV offers great synergy to what we are doing in viral marketing," Harding adds, citing Mission Manband (VH-1) among other examples. Beyond his work with T.H.E.M., Tozzi's longform work extends to the hit Wondershowzen (MTV2) and Xavier: Renegade Angel (premiering November 1 on Adult Swim).

"We shoot in various formats, drawing on expansive resources and skills to maximize production value and deliver more in the post process," explain Harding, who handled editorial and titles for the Allstate Bergwood campaign in-house at T.H.E.M. "When we're working in 35mm, we have equally powerful resources, so we view the projects more in terms of their creative and production needs as opposed to what we can do for the money."

Harding credits his company's evolution and diversity to the progressive needs of the advertising industry. "Our initial viral projects were client-direct, good creative with very small budgets," he says. "Then, we started getting calls from agencies wanting us to shoot viral components in addition to spots intended for air. Now, we're seeing webisodes, viral, and Internet videos, with the objective of cutting a broadcast spot out of it. We've had to find a way to do it all."

The evolution of this particular Allstate campaign dates back to 2006, when the team at Leo Burnett Chicago produced some work featuring a character named Bergwood whose ultimate goal was to be a college football kicker. Agency Producer Vincent Geraghty had worked with Tozzi on an award-winning TV campaign in the past, and got in touch with the director about a new viral campaign. "They wanted something edgy and a little weird, which is what I like to do," says Tozzi. "As soon as I talked with the creative team, we were off and running." Tozzi dove deep into the world of Bergwood, fleshing out the character and developing a backstory involving his parents, complete with 'archival' footage. The three-day shoot was a tight one but left room for improvisation. "Andrew Hawtry, who plays Bergwood, is great at improv," Tozzi says, "and we weren't constrained to :30 or :60 format, so if it was funny it stayed in." Some additional bits were added based on location. The ballet class in "Miss Mandy," for example, came about because the company was shooting in a gym that had one.

"We could never have pulled this off without producer Gary Kout," Harding points out, "and Tozzi is a budget-friendly director who knows how to keep it together. So this was a good team for this kind of project."

That team spirit was in evidence after the shoot as well; the campaign's title sequence, built around the idea of a football board game, was an idea Tozzi tossed into the mix on the eve of a full weekend of editing. Geraghty, along with agency Copywriter Tony Pawela and Art Director Dave Deroma got on board and everyone pitched in. "We ran out to Wayne, NJ , and picked out the game elements we'd use, spray-painted the figures white, with the Allstate logo, and shot it in our office," laughs Harding. "It was just a fun idea to add more challenges to a 72-hour post production marathon. But we were all in, and it shows." 

Client: Allstate
Spots Title(S): "Intro," "Toeism," "Miss Mandy," "Play The Wind," "Backstory," "Fan"
First Air Date: 9/24/07, on the Web, including www.bergwood.net)

Agency: Leo Burnett Chicago
EVP/Creative Dir: Charley Wickman
Agency Producer: Vincent Geraghty
Agency Writer: Tony Pawela
Agency Art Dir: Dave Deroma

Production Company: T.H.E.M.
Director: Jim Tozzi
DP: Fortunato Procopio
EP: Tony Harding
Producer: Gary Kout
Production Design: Bekka Melino

Editorial: T.H.E.M.
Editorial EP: Tony Harding
Editor: Sean Casey
Colorist: Sean Casey
Graphics/After Effects: Marc Thomas

Sound Design: Creative Audio Post
Sound Designer: Jacques Boulanger
Audio Post: Creative Audio Post
Mixer: Jacques Boulanger
Music: Jed's Stock Music
Composer: Varied
Producer: Michael Justeson

Shoot Location: Los Angeles, CA

*statistics change daily