When the pandemic shut down production right before a planned shoot, the creative team was forced to completely rethink State Farm’s role in the highly anticipated documentary ESPN series The Last Dance.

With the narrative of The Last Dance being driven by vintage sports reporting, we used archival footage and facial mapping technology to seamlessly blend the documentary and our branded content.

The result was a disturbingly accurate prediction of the future from longtime ESPN Anchor Kenny Mayne – creating massive buzz that helped State Farm own one of the greatest sports moments of 2020.

In the spring of 2020, State Farm had to work fast. To satiate a sports starved audience, ESPN moved their docuseries "The Last Dance" about Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls up from July to April, and as presenting sponsor, State Farm needed to create a piece of brand content worthy of the moment. The planned shoot had been canceled, due to COVID-19, and a creative pivot was needed and needed fast.

It wasn't enough to pay respect to the mid-90s Bulls, State Farm wanted to send the audience back to the era – and seamlessly integrate into the broadcast in the process. So using facial mapping technology and computer animation, SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne returned to a 1990s episode to make some predictions about the future – and break the commercial's fourth wall referencing State Farm in the process.

State Farm is always looking for new ways to connect with a very savvy basketball audience, that knows when they're being marketed to, and strengthen brand loyalty. ESPN's "The Last Dance" was the perfect opportunity to do just that – a cultural landmark broadcast event, with limited commercial interruption.

A full production was planned, script approved, and ready to go, when the world shut down due to COVID-19. Then, ESPN moved up the launch of "The Last Dance," shortening the timeline from five months to just one. New creative, aware of production limitations, was concepted, scripted, and quickly approved by State Farm and ESPN, then produced entirely remotely – with the talent on one coast, and the animators on the other. Then the 30-second film blending nostalgia and technology was placed in the middle of the documentary filled with SportsCenter highlights and almost no commercial interruptions. The result felt like a part of "The Last Dance" because it really was.

The integration was so seamless, fans did a double-take. Actually believing that the State Farm commercial was a part of the documentary, viewers immediately took to social media to share their surprise with the world. With 52 million impressions, 15x brand mentions, thousands of tweets, and 12/15 trending topics, the social conversation anointed the State Farm commercial as one of the all-time greats, even "raising the bar for brand integration" – creating a Super Bowl-level moment, with only one brand on the stage – State Farm.