“Dear Coach,” starts one commercial in the Team On campaign. “Dear Seniors,” begins another. Narrated by a football coach and a graduating senior from an Indiana high school, and inspired by actual letters they wrote to each other, “Dear Coach” and “Dear Seniors” honor the bond between player and coach. Russell Athletic and its ad agency, Barkley, based in Kansas City, left no stone unturned in their efforts to reach—and pay homage to—the thousands of high-school seniors for whom December marked the end of their football careers. Online videos accompanied the sixty-second “Dear Seniors” commercial, first aired during the Russell Athletic Bowl. A social media campaign broke the mold of Facebook by featuring real letters—nary an image in sight—from high-school coaches to their senior players, and on Instagram, photographs from famed Friday Night Lights photographer Robert Clark were posted alongside collaged images from student photographers. But the gratitude of the audience didn’t ebb, even as the month-long social media campaign did. Coaches and players continued tagging each other with the content well beyond the pitch.
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