 One of the most important things was that Bubba have a voice in this project. And when I showed it to him, he said, well, this piece is my mind. If he feels like his mind was well represented, then I felt like the piece itself was his voice. My name is Wesley Walker. I'm a director, represented at the School of North America. I'm Kelly Ruff. I'm Chief Grand Officer of Root Insurance. I'm a Wallace and I am a professional race car driver. That's the easiest way to put it. Can you tell us a little bit about how this idea was developed? The state of the country last summer, with the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Amade Arbery and countless others, resulted in protests. Those resulted in police brutality and counter protests. And through all of the media coverage, a really interesting and unique narrative kind of popped up. And that was the story of Bubba Wallace. Circuit's only black driver is calling for a ban on the Confederate flag at NASCAR events. When a noose was found in his assigned garage and the trending Twitter hashtag, fake noobs, to apologize to another host. Wallace's stand for social justice has likely transformed the sport. At that time, I was going through so much just on and off the racetrack. President Donald Trump at the time coming out against Bubba Wallace and really just honestly supporting white supremacy and really pushing Bubba in a way that just was completely unfair and unfounded and Bubba pushing back. And so once we saw that as a centerpiece of the story, we were like, OK, how do we inspire everyone that is of color, everyone that rides for justice and positivity and change? This was something that I was passionate about. If I'm standing up for what's right, then so be it. This project specifically was just so, so close and dear to my heart. Root insurance came directly to Tool of North America and Tool of North America, you know, put me directly in touch with Kelly Roof. To tell the story about a young black male, we partnered with two young black male creatives, Wes Walker and Mark Wilson, a very talented creative director writer. Before we even got, you know, a pen to paper, what we had were hard conversations. Kelly and I would get on the phone sometimes and just share really rawly, really honestly, how is it that we relate to race? How do we relate to what's happening in the world at large? How are we dealing with the pandemic and how are we going to make something that really touches people? The pressure to do this responsibly, correctly was immense. And we knew from the beginning, a mandate we set for ourselves was representation, not just in the representation and crafting the story, but within cast and crew. A big part of that commitment was understanding how a brand enters into a story like this. Truth about social justice being mixed with the advertising world is you can't appropriate when brands venture into social justice advertising. My first question to them is, do you actually care about this community that you are now about to advertise to or try and incorporate or try and give a voice to voice to the voiceless? Like, do you actually give a shit? This was to us about celebrating and supporting Bubba's story and closing out that we were proud to be part of sharing the story. The other major piece of it, though, and it was very critical to us, especially Mark and myself, both of us as Black men, was from the beginning of it, was to incorporate Bubba Wallace's voice in it. So we had to really involve him in the process and say, does this feel true to you? I'm all about pushing the buttons and, you know, flirting with the edge. Rude is very comfortable. They're all about being different, being edgy, being something that, you know, is not following the following the traditional path. And so going through the whole process with Rude, with Wesley, everybody on the crew was super fun to work with. At the center of all of this is a half Black, half white, a mixed man. And he's got his own feelings and his own emotions and his own subconscious. Just because I'm on TV and on this pedestal that I did not ask to be put on, you know, we're still, still human. My first conversations with Bubba were like, what does it feel like inside of your mind? What we found in that process was that Bubba Wallace was a reluctant hero. He wasn't the first one to say, I want to get the flag back. Someone else mentioned it, and then he actually stood up and said, hey, yeah, I agree with that. That should be them. And then it led to this huge movement to work with a non-actor, to work with an athlete to me is the best. Because those are some of the most genuine and raw and authentic performances, because they're not filtering themselves. Bubba Wallace is being. And I think there's a big difference between performing and just being yourself. Early in the concepting process, Mark Wilson had a line deep in one of the concepts that said, if an apology must be made, I'll only apologize. It took this long. We felt that it was stronger of a statement, not to say something in that moment. It led to it hitting a lot harder. If you were in my shoes, just trying to be yourself and standing up for what's right. And then you're getting a ton of backlash for it. You don't you don't need to say anything else. You let people do the speaking and show their true colors. The power that just because an apology is asked doesn't mean one needs to be given. You apologize. Timing was everything within this spot. It was very important that we get this out before the election. Trump is a character in this spot. He is a role and the tension between the tweet that he put out and the resulting media pressure. In terms of developing the concept from start to finish, we had three weeks of creative idea generation. So writing scripts, nine different concepts. I would say start to finish by putting it out. It would be about a month and a half to two months total time. A month and a half. It's a really long time to sort of steep in really difficult, difficult imagery. What was the key to keeping that levity? To be very honest, I think that your question is just it's so special to me because I don't think anyone's acknowledged that to me in this whole process. How heavy this is to do. There were large Confederate flags. There were angry fans yelling, booing him. There were big images being projected onto a screen. Those are potentially triggering elements for Bubba, for cast and crew, for everyone. There was a heaviness to all of this content. And we one had frequent conversations of are are you comfortable with this? Is this too much? I cried many times throughout this process. Like I really, especially at the end when we were when I had to fight for certain images to be left in images, for example, of the little boy at the end that looks towards Bubba, like that almost was cut. And I'm like, no, that's very important that you see the next generation take hope from him. I sit here and look at, you know, how many people look up to me as a role model? How many young kids want to be in my shoes and do what I do? And I'm like, man, that's it's got to be pretty cool for people watching. Overwhelmingly, we had a very, very positive response to the spot. Man, it played it played in a Times Square prior to actually putting it out. And we had a lot of pushback from various stakeholders. It was edited to get it to where it was. That's why we didn't get it out sooner is because we went round and round. We almost walked away from the whole project because we thought if we can't preserve it and the integrity that we want to have with the story, we're not going to put it out. Something that I, again, I'm very grateful to Kelly for is going to bat constantly for this piece and the team at Root as well. And and also just the leadership at Root for saying, you know what, we stand behind this not just because it's a powerful message, but because of who we are as a company. Our partnership didn't end with this spot. It was actually just the beginning. We continue to work with with Bubba on elements to carry the conversation forward. I hope this piece says that more than anything as a director personally. I'm capable, you know, people of color, black, Mexican, can create work that is just as not better than anything else in the industry if we're supported, if we're given the resources.