State Farm Remembers

Monday, September 12 2011

Being in business often means more than providing a product or service and receiving compensation in return.

Successful businesses always remember that they are more than a commercial enterprise, a bottom line endeavor with eyes on a specific prize. Successful businesses understand that they are always part of a community.

State Farm certainly understands.

The insurance giant, which coincidently has an office here at Atrium, recently ran a 90 second television spot that had nothing to do with selling policies. In the ad, a group of children assembled outside the doors of a New York fire station and, unannounced and unprovoked, began to sing the Jay-Z/Alicia Keys classic Empire State of Mind. The spot, directed by renowned filmmaker Spike Lee, intersperses scenes of the city with the simple narrative of kids giving musical thanks. It wraps with an arial shot of the Ground Zero memorial and the words Never Forgotten and Forever Grateful. Only then (and only briefly) does the State Farm logo appear.

Those 90 seconds of television didn’t offer a single compelling argument for buying insurance. It did, however, make a statement about State Farm.