The question that led to an award-winning spot

It’s hard to watch our parents age.

There’s a sure knowledge that we are seeing our own future years, and while I couldn’t contemplate 50 when I was 20, I can very easily imagine 88 (my father’s age) from my current age.

As bodies slow down, as mucles weaken and atrophy, as balance tips precariously, as concentration flickers like a tiny candle in a hurricane, it must seem that everything you’ve done while young and strong and fearless, everything that helped define you to those who knew you best and loved you most, is so far gone as to be irretrievable.

No wonder so many of the aged are depressed.

And that’s why this TV spot, for a bank of all things, caught my attention, because it tells a different story.

A story of hope, and determination, and renewal. A story of joy at what we can still do.

Not to go backwards; we’ve already lived that life, and many have lost the ones they then shared life with. No, not backwards. This spot offers joy for what lies ahead, for what we still have.

We all need purpose in our lives. We all need a dream within our reach.

If it appears stereotypical, cosider the culture, but mainly pay attention to the story, and how it speaks to your FEELINGS, not your brain or your wallet or your ego. It’s aimed at your heart.

So…feedback time…

What do you think?

How could you make it better?

And what would a female version of this idea look like?

THIS is the most fun we’ll have all day…

**Many thanks to my dear old — and I do mean OLD — friend, Roger Thompson for making me aware of this campaign. Roger was my original production voice at KIMN in the 70s, and once separated from me, actually found real success as the VO talent for all of the ABC O&O stations for the past 30 years.