A Talking Thumb Helps Keep Your Home Happy in Thumbtack Spot

Thumbtack, a home services app that gives homeowners easy access to home care professionals, is launching its first brand campaign. The first expression of the campaign, 'Broken Shades,' was created in partnership with L&C New York and will feature a talking thumb. We say to ourselves, “it’s fine if I wait until tomorrow.” And then tomorrow is the next day, the next week, the next month and then eventually the next year. Lanfranco & Cordova’s intention with this campaign is to remind people that they can easily get their home repairs and upgrades done today with the Thumbtack app, so their homes always look great and run smoothly. 

To express this idea L&C decided on a whimsical campaign featuring a thumb which plays the role of a person's conscience. In the first execution, a :30 video that will run across TV and social, a woman sits in her bedroom late at night, scrolling mindlessly through her phone, when much to her surprise her thumb begins speaking to her. Her thumb reminds her that she has been meaning to fix her blinds for far too long, and that she can easily fix them now by using the Thumbtack app. 

The production was remote across five time zones: San Francisco and Chicago where the Thumbtack clients sit, New York City where the agency, L&C is located, London where the director and VFX from Framestore took place, and Cape Town where the shoot took place. 

The idea relies heavily on visual effects (VFX), so all of the details needed to be planned in advance because you don’t have the luxury of improvisation that you would otherwise have on a set. 

Even though it’s not a natural movement for the human body, the hero talent had to interact with her thumb as though it had come alive. L&C needed to put a mouth on the thumb in post-production so that it would look like it was having a conversation. So there was a lot of direction and blocking that happened in advance of the shoot. 

Diego Figueroa, head of brand marketing at Thumbtack: “Our main brand objective is to establish Thumbtack as the partner for homeowners in the continuous care of their homes. Since people are emotionally invested in their homes, we wanted to create a campaign that resonates with homeowners across the country with a different, yet relatable, type of work.” added Figueroa.”

“We started our partnership with L&C late last year when they helped us to identify a unique positioning for our brand and brought it to life with an idea that every homeowner in America can relate to. We continued our partnership with L&C because they demonstrated a clear understanding of our brand truths and challenges, a sharp strategic approach and a creative sensibility that brought a fresh perspective to a category filled with conventionalisms and transactional communication.”

Rolando Cordova, co-founder and CCO at L&C New York: “The thumb character represents the inner voice inside of each one of us. When it comes to home repairs, we’re all guilty of saying to ourselves, “I need to fix this tomorrow.” But then tomorrow comes and you never do it. The thumb is there to serve as our conscience and get us to take action today.” 

Chris Waitt, director at Framestore: “I loved the quirkiness and originality of the script. The idea of a talking thumb felt like one of those ideas that was very surreal. It felt like it had charm about it. 

“Even though the script is pretty off beat, We didn’t want to play the comedy too broadly at all, so the tone had to feel naturalistic and real – everything from the casting of the thumb voice to my directing of the lead actors was guided by that idea of realism.”