In 2019, at the height of the NBA season, Klay Thompson tore his ACL. He spent a year recovering from his injury. Just as he was set to return, he suffered an Achilles injury that kept him from playing for a second season. In many ways, his setbacks paralleled the experience of us all, as we worked to return to some sense of normalcy from the pandemic. As the final act in the story Kaiser Permanente and Klay Thompson have been telling together, our task was to set the tone of optimism towards what comes next for all of us. We leveraged Klay Thompson as living proof that despite our setbacks, we all have it in us to thrive, today and everyday. In turn, our work motivates viewers to redefine their everyday wins and showcase Kaiser Permanente’s holistic approach to health care as total health of body and mind.

The creative idea is to give depth to the brand’s spirit of “Thrive” by recognizing that every moment that helps push us forward–even the hard ones–is a win. To broaden the definition of “a win” as every point in time along the journey that helps us reach our destination: A win is taking a half step after surgery. Hearing the crowd scream your name. Walking through the park with your dog. Just being able to shoot, even if you miss. Talking to someone. Taking a day off so you can come back for the next. Lacing up for your first game back. Waking up ready to do it all over again.

For a few years, Kaiser Permanente has closely partnered with Klay Thompson in his journey of mental and physical resilience, a journey that parallels our audience’s own. They’ve spent the last several challenging years hoping we’ll eventually be able to “return” to our regular routines, struggling to accept the life we knew will likely never look quite the same. In this work, we set a tone of optimism toward what comes next for all of us. We may not know what tomorrow will look like. But as Klay so aptly demonstrates, staying adaptable unleashes our unseen potential – proving we all have it within us to thrive, today and every day. As we’ve seen through Klay’s journey, recovery is not linear. It’s up and down, and sideways too. Some days are good. Some are awful. But even the dark days help us see the light.

This 30-second film is airing adjacent to the NBA Playoffs as Klay Thompson and his team, the Golden State Warriors, compete in the series. The work strategically premiered at the start of the series on the same platforms the playoff games were featured, and will continue to run through the duration of the event.

As the work goes into market on in mid-April, we will be measuring total impressions, total views, total engagement, and sentiment scores.