KORI KLINE, A FORMER BALTIMORE Ravens cheerleader, had appeared in two commercials for Baltimore’s Smyth Jewelers, in character as a wedding guest and a maid of honor.
When she got a call from the ad agency working with Smyth and learned she would next be cast as a bride-to-be, she was excited, but had no reason to believe that the third experience would be much, if any, different from the first two.
When she arrived for the shoot, the director told her that the actor who would play her boyfriend was stuck in traffic and they’d be ready to shoot as soon as he arrived.
So when — instead of a harried actor — her real-life boyfriend, Zach Sullivan, appeared on the set bearing a ring box, she was stunned.
“I had zero idea,” she says. “When I actually saw Zach on set, I was very confused, but very excited at the same time. It took a second for it to click for me.”
Sullivan had approached Smyth’s marketing director with the idea of making the commercial into a mini-reality show and proposing then and there.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything than wanting to marry you and grow old together. Will you marry me?” Sullivan asked Kline. She said yes!
Luckily, he was confident what the answer would be from his girlfriend of four years. “She would give me subtle hints every once in a while, saying ‘I want a ring on this finger,’ pointing at her ring finger. So I was nervous. I didn’t want to mess up, but I wasn’t nervous whether she’d say yes or not.”
Adds Kline, “I might have been sending him pictures of rings multiple times per week.”
Tom Smyth
When Tom Smyth, CEO of Smyth, first heard about the idea, he thought it was pretty cool, but a lot to pull off. Luckily, ad agency TB&C was more than up to the challenge, he says. The video quickly racked up more than 17,000 views within a few weeks in a market where Kline’s connection to the Ravens makes her a local celebrity.
Smyth plans to use the commercial on TV as well.
“Zach also used the ring cam, which records the fiancée’s response from a camera that’s in the ring box,” Smyth notes. “For us, it’s been great to share in this special moment. Zach clearly raised the bar here. I hope the community sees it and comes up with more ideas for raising the bar. This generation loves to make an event out of a proposal.”
While Tom Smyth and a veteran marketing director are in charge of the marketing effort, Smyth credits the agency TB&C for keeping the approach modern, hip and smart. “That’s why you hire people who are better at it than you are. I think we give them more latitude than most clients.”
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Smyth has overseen the marketing effort since the ‘80s.
“I have always liked thinking outside of the box and making it fun and tongue-in-cheek, trying to get the customers to smile. If you make it fun, it’s more memorable.”
And of course, Smyth and company were happy to help Sullivan narrow down the 200 photos of ring ideas on his phone that Kori had sent him.
The perfect ring was discovered within 90 minutes.
“It is absolutely stunning,” Kline says of the ring. “It’s everything I asked for. I told Zach I liked the twisted bands and a halo cushion cut. He went above and beyond. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Kori Kline is surprised by a proposal from her boyfriend, Zach Sullivan, on the set of a commercial for Smyth Jewelers. While Kline thought it was an acting job, Smyth arranged with Sullivan to make it the real thing, and the video went viral.
