Cubs, Chicago Agency Keep Wraps On Commercial Chronicling Long-Awaited Title

While Cubs fans "soaked in their moment of jubilation" after winning the World Series, a crew of "about a dozen video producers and editors were hard at work, frantically wrapping up a top-secret project they had started two months before" to document the club's championship run, according to Danny Ecker of CRAIN'S CHICAGO BUSINESS. Since early September, the team's marketing department had been working with Schafer Condon Carter, Chicago, on a "plan for how to immediately seize the marketing value" of the World Series "without letting anyone outside of the team know." The spot, dubbed "Today is Our Day," had shoots during NLDS and NLCS games, and "included fans at local restaurants, a Chicago firehouse and the living rooms of their friends known to be die-hard fans." Those working on the project "even gave it a code name -- Project Santo, a nod to late Cubs great Ron Santo -- for fear of fans thinking the team was getting ahead of itself." The goal was to create a 60-second spot that would "debut within hours of the final out and, if done right, would stand for posterity as the ultimate video tribute." SCC CEO Tim Condon said, "It was the idea we felt was the most powerful and had the most emotional content. But you felt like you're working on stuff that just is like an automatic jinx." Ecker notes planning "started around the time the Cubs clinched" the NL Central on Sept. 16. SCC Creative Dir Michael Dorich: "One of the things we always stay true to is authenticity with Cubs fans, because they sniff it out, they can smell when you're BS-ing them." The final product "got around 10 million views in its first 24 hours" on Facebook (CHICAGOBUSINESS.com, 11/10).