Situation: Medical debt and disparities in health and wealth in the United States affects close to 50% of Americans and disproportionately impacts people of color and those in low-income communities.

Brief: Create a short film that depicts the value of care and the impact of a medical event on a family, to embody the spirit of Aflac’s core principles. The film serves as the first effort of Aflac’s Close the Gap initiative, which aims to educate, support, and advocate for closing the health and wealth gap in the U.S.

Objectives: Today, consumers want to know what a brand stands for - its purpose. Using the backdrop of a family story, Aflac’s objective was to create a film that embodies the brand’s core principles, depicting the value of care and what matters most during a medical crisis - recovery, not finances.

“The Park Bench” shines a light on the stories we usually don’t see – the health disparities that exist in the African American community and their unique health challenges, such as sickle cell anemia. In the film, the Aflac Duck demonstrates how it helps a family navigate a difficult health situation. It shows that in times of crisis, sometimes the best thing one can do is reach out and care for someone else.

As an homage to the first Aflac Duck commercial in 2000, also called “The Park Bench,” the film was conceived by writer/director Rob Edwards and the Oscar winning producers at Lion Forge Animation. The team produced a 3D animated film with the highest production value, with Nas serving as the film’s music director.

Brands want to connect with consumers through relevant, meaningful ways, conveying messages and actions that don’t overtly sell but instead show humanity through solutions. To respond to this new paradigm, Aflac developed a new initiative: Close the Gap, a public expression of its purpose to support people in the gap of what health insurance doesn’t cover, so they can care about everything else. The initiative is a multifaceted, comprehensive program that aims to support, educate and advocate for the need to close the health and wealth gap – an issue that affects close to 50% of Americans and disproportionately impacts people of color. The first action of this initiative was the creation of an animated short called “The Park Bench,” which embodies the spirit of their core principles and illustrates a scenario many families face when an unexpected medical event occurs.

Implementation: “The Park Bench” is the first action stemming from Aflac’s Close the Gap initiative, which aims to address medical debt and health disparities in America. It was made by BIPOC creators, animators, producers, and agencies, extending Aflac’s legacy in diversity and highlighting the impact a sickness or disease can have on a family.

Timeline: “The Park Bench” was produced in 2021 and publicly released on January 22, 2022.

Placement: The film’s premiere screening was live streamed on Twitch and watched by 137K people. It launched the same day on Roku, Amazon, Hulu, and the brand’s social channels. To date, it has been an official selection at nine film festivals, including four Academy Award qualifying festivals.

Scale: The initial release was promoted throughout the U.S. through paid, earned, and owned channels. The film will be released on more VOD platforms in May, 2022.

The film was watched in totality over 11M times on Roku, Amazon, Hulu and owned channels. Earned placements resulted in 777M media impressions on major outlets, including Forbes, Adweek, and US Weekly.

The livestreamed premiere was watched by an audience of 137K. Video promotions received 16M impressions on social media.

The brand received 100’s of messages from field agents, expressing gratitude for representing the company’s core values. “These stories are truly inspirational and make me proud every day of the work that I do,” said one field agent. On YouTube, comments from people with sickle cell disease expressed appreciation, “As someone born with sickle cell disease, I completely understand what that father was going through. I never thought of how it might be to have a child seeing me suffer. Thanks for sharing that perspective and bringing more recognition to an illness that affects approximately 1 in 365 African Americans."