“Fairytales” campaign shows hardships that small businesses face

Arnold Worldwide designed the two spots to recognize the challenges that small business owners face and how Progressive is there to protect you through these realities and get your business back on track.

This insight comes to life in two spots: “Good Morning!” featuring a flower shop and an employee injury & “Lunchtime” featuring a small diner and grease fire. Both play with an animated fairytale-like intro that is interrupted with an abrupt slap into reality when an employee slips in a flower shop and a grease fire occurs in a diner.

‘Good Morning!’ depicts a jubilant flower shop owner, happily watering flowers and twirling-throughout her small business. All seems perfect, until the fairytale-like story turns reality, as an employee is rolled out on a stretcher from slipping on a puddle.

‘Lunchtime!’ shows a booming, classic diner inhabited by satisfied customers ` dancing animated characters. Like ‘Good Morning!’, this story quickly turns to reality, as a grease breaks out in the kitchen, leading to an evacuation of the restaurant.

Two of the most common commercial claims are represented – slip and falls, and fires.

Icaro Doria, Chief Creative Officer, Arnold  

“I’m excited to share our latest work for Progressive – a campaign called “Fairytales.” The work highlights real insights from small business owners, and reminds viewers that running your own business isn’t always a dream come true. We fully embraced the challenge of finding the appropriate animation styles and production details to bring the fairytale world to life.”

Sean McBride, EVP Executive Creative Director, Arnold

“We were pretty careful not to gloss over the very real challenges of owning and running a small business, because we knew that wouldn’t ring true to our audience. At the same time, we wanted to make sure our work was ultimately optimistic about owning a business, because, at the end of the day, Progressive’s role as an insurer is to inspire confidence and enable success. So we’re pretty proud of the balance this campaign manages to strike. We were able to deal with the real challenges businesses face in an optimistic and fun way.”

Source: Arnold Worldwide

  Arnold Worldwide, Creative, Icaro Doria, Sean McBride