Hy-Vee — Rooney

“We’ll do ANYTHING for a customer.”

The mantra Hy-Vee and its 70,000+ employees live and breathe by. Coincidentally, it’s a philosophy we take quite seriously at J&M as well.

So when Hy-Vee came to us wanting to repeat the magic of last year’s holiday campaign, we didn’t back down from the challenge.

While our previous holiday story celebrated the power of a community coming together, this year we wanted to bring the spirit of hospitality a little closer to home.

We’ve heard countless stories of Hy-Vee employees going above and beyond for their customers. Running a prescription to someone who can't leave home. Staying after hours to help a shopper in need.

These incredibly human acts of kindness are what set Hy-Vee apart.

And as parents, we know a thing or two about going to extraordinary lengths for the people we love. Especially when it comes to our kids and their stuffies.

Those matted, smelly, often disfigured stuffed objects of affection. The ones that have been dragged through every grocery store, restaurant, airport, and family vacation. The ones that are somehow more important than anything else in the world. And the absolute devastation that comes with losing one.

So we told a story about a little girl, her beloved stuffed deer, and a Hy-Vee employee who understood that getting him home for Christmas meant a whole lot more than returning a lost toy.

The result was an emotional gut-punch of a film. One unbelievably cute stuffed deer.

We worked with Hy-Vee to bring him off the screen and into stores across the Midwest, with stuffed deer of their own, in-store activations, and social and digital extensions. All built around one little guy who came to represent something much bigger, Hy-Vee's willingness to do just about anything for its customers.