The film portrays the hardships faced by basketball player Jason Preston, who lost both parents at 16 and had to sleep on his best friend’s couch. Despite averaging only two points per game in high school, a single viral video captured on a phone changed his life. The video went viral, accumulating thousands of likes, messages, and shares—and caught the attention of Ohio State College, which offered him a spot on their team. Eventually, Jason was drafted by the Clippers in the 2021 NBA Draft. The commercial emphasizes the transformative power of a single connection to change one’s story.

For many years, telco as a category has been all about sales activations and less about creating brands people care about. While this strategy has maintained sales, it creates a risk of commodification over the long-term. With the launch of the Connecting Changes Everything campaign, AT&T sought to change that and build a brand connection that could support their business goals for years.

Below are preliminary metrics since the campaign launch, March 30th, 2023.

General impact &engagement:

- In total, the campaign has delivered 732MM impressions.

- 90MM impressions in 3 days.

- Social engagement sentiment was extremely strong at 88%.

According to Ace Metrix, below shows how the campaign is performing at building emotional connection:

- Average 1.88 “Inspiring” ACE EMO signal, vs. 0.004 wireless category average for 2022

- Average 2.44 “Heartfelt” ACE EMO signal, vs. 0.004 wireless category average for 2022

We launched during the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Final Four. Based on our extensive experience and historical measurement in those tentpoles, we knew we also needed to create work that would resonate in that context. Fortunately, connecting really does change everything—including the trajectory of young athletes. We told the powerful story of Jason Preston, a basketball player whose life and career were transformed by a single moment of connection.