Emotional Allianz Support Dog Squad Aids Skateboarders’ Tokyo 2020 Training In Brand Film

To leverage Tokyo 2020, Allianz – the Official Insurance Partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games – released a short documentary film exploring the mental health struggles athletes face preparing for the Olympics and Paralympics and the positive impact that emotional support dogs can have on reducing stress and anxiety.

The film, created in harness with agency BBDO New York and helmed by Director Jacob Rosenberg, follows the stories of two international skateboarders – Leticia Bufoni and Dashawn Jordan – and how emotional support dogs helped them when they needed it most.

Allianz itself spearheaded an initiative called the ‘Allianz Support Dog Squad’ which brought emotional support dogs to help the international skateboarders shape a more positive and uplifting outlook for what lies ahead as they trained in Los Angeles for their sport’s Olympic debut.

The brand film was created by a team at agency BBDO New York where the team included Chief Creative Officer (Worldwide) David Lubars, Executive Creative Directors Betsy Decker and Marco Cignini, Head Of Content Operations Andrew Osborne, Executive Producer Carole McCarty, Designer Ray McGale, SVP Senior Director Lindsey Cash, Account Director Nathan King, Chief Strategy Officer Andrea Ring, VP Strategy Director Philip De Meulemeester, SVP Director Of Production Services Jessica Nugent and Business Manager Grace Kelly.

The PR agency on the project was Fleishmanhillard where the group included Senior Vice President & AMP Partner Steve Hickok, Vice President Pritni Sandhu and Account Supervisor Micaela Benedetti.

The sports marketing agency GMR also worked on the activation with Vice President Jeff Handler, Client Services Director Alexa Sunderland and Account Executive Tatum Cornelius.

The media agency was OMD, the production company was The Reserve Label, with editorial handled by Final Cut, Telecine by Forager TV, plus music by Asche.

Comment:

Then during the Games themselves the issue of mental wellness was in the spotlight as some star athletes – including US gymnastics megastar Simone Biles – went bravely public with their own mental wellbeing stresses and challenges.