Nobody knew what to make of these commercials when they first came out. Were they really ads? They certainly weren’t typical commercials. And yet, they were very successful. More than successful, really. They won every big award in advertising. Some of them three or four times over the course of the campaign—including The Cannes Advertising Film Festival. These simple little commercials helped transition John Hancock from insurance company to financial services company. Along the way, they changed advertising.