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Raiders running back Josh Jacobs is of the best stories you’ll ever find. He grew up homeless. Sleeping in his Dad’s truck with his brothers and sisters. Football was a way off the street. To pre-launch the effort, we asked Josh to re-read the words of an actual interview where he had previously explained where his passion for the game flows from.
For this campaign our focus was youth homelessness. With every launch we try to figure out how the brand can bring attention to worthy causes. And maybe make the world just a slightly better place along the way.
What would you tell your younger self if you could jump through time? It’s something we’ve all thought about. That became the hook for Kia’s 11th Super Bowl appearance.
This story had so much raw emotional power. It was nice to see other people get worked up like we did.
This was my third time in the Super Bowl. And second time in the Top #10. A real privilege.
We got some nice ink. Which never hurts.
Over 4 million kids in America are homeless. This, in the world’s wealthiest nation. Germany (at a quarter of the population of the US) has only 22,000 kids on the street. We were stunned by those stats. So we created Yards Against Homelessness—pledging a thousand dollars per yard earned in the big game for homeless youth. Ultimately, Kia rounded up to a million dollars. Then doubled down with another million a month later.
The deeper we got into Josh’s story, the more we realized it couldn’t be told in purely short form. While we were filming, Josh gifted his Dad with a house and won NFL Rookie of the Year. We had no clue these things would happen while we were shooting.
The interest was immediate. And measurable. Seltos continues to be a strong seller, despite it’s goofy name. And a big reason Kia blew past it’s sales benchmarks in a very tough year.
Josh grew up in Tulsa. So we scouted rural Oklahoma. Which has a mind bending variety of terrain. Abandoned racetracks. Dunes that would be indistinguishable from the Sahara. We took advantage of what we could find.