Wayne Gretzky skates into Tim Horton's ad to tug on the heartstrings

A quickie shout-out to a nice brand storytelling job from Tim Horton’s, the Canadian-born coffee-and-donut chain. Canada and hockey go hand-in-hand. And there’s no greater hockey icon than The Great One himself. Well, what if all those elements could come together in a heart-tugging commercial based on a true and authentic brand story? They do. The result is is well-done, nostalgic and poignant. Here’s “The Autograph.”

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9d6R3i-CDk&w=854&h=480]

The back story at the heart of the commercial:

A chance meeting in 1968 between a young Wayne Gretzky and hockey legend Tim Horton at a restaurant in Brantford, Ontario changed Gretzky’s life, and Canada’s hockey history. Gretzky’s mother, Phyllis, took him to meet Horton at a local restaurant opening.

My only qualm with this is that the commercial isn’t connected to a bigger initiative - be it a predictable one (say, Canadian youth hockey) or something more tangential (related to kids’ dreams overall). Instead, they’ll be a 'limited edition tumbler” featuring Gretzky’s autograph at participating locations.

The tastiest little tidbit from this effort, besides the general warm and fuzzies? How about this fun fact from an article on The Drum:

In preparation for the shoot, it became clear that playing the role of young Wayne Gretzky was every young Canadian actor’s dream – more than 68,000 Canadian boys auditioned for the role.

A good one for sure…but not The Great One.