Tim Russert is gone and Sunday mornings won’t be the same. Not that I was up at the crack of dawn on Sundays, so I tried to catch the rebroadcasts. And I always loved that Russert asked the questions I would want to ask (or I would like to think I would have been smart enough to ask).
But that’s not what this post is about. This is a before now, untold-story about when our corner of the “ad” world crossed paths with the hallowed NBC show.
It was not quite three years ago in the lead up to the G8 Summit, we were asked to produce an advertising campaign on behalf of One.org that would put pressure on world leaders to commit their countries’ resources to end poverty in the world. It was a monumental feat. We had to capture footage of a speech Nelson Mandela had given, edit his great words, translate into many different language, and develop a print and digital campaign. And we had less than 10 days to do it.
After working non-stop for days, we were in the midst of editing when we heard that Russert would be interviewing Bono on Meet The Press and he wanted to use the spot we were still making. I saw the final rough cut at about 1am Pacific Time and when I approved it, it was sent by satellite about an hour later to Washington where it was on the air just a couple of hours after that.
The funny thing, because of the incredible rush of this project, Bono had not seen the spot until the moment Russert’s producers broadcast it to the nation. I guarantee we were all awake for that 6 am broadcast of that show. More than anything, we were curious what Bono would do. He’s a smooth cat, that’s all I can say.
Thanks Tim.
Posted by johnlivengood 
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