Twilio
Virtual Events
Telling the Twilio story
THE ASSIGNMENT
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s founder and CEO, immediately saw the potential of using virtual production technology as a creative platform for hosting SIGNAL, the company’s annual customer event, as well as CKO, their annual company kickoff event.
As a category innovator and leader in data-driven customer engagement solutions, Twilio relies on a strong developer community to drive adoption of its communication APIs across the enterprise. Their “builder” ethos is fundamental to its values and grounded in people's indomitable power to create a better world.
SOLUTION
In many ways, Jeff’s effusive and contagious energy was the personification of the Twilio brand, and we approached each event as a fresh new opportunity to tell Twilio’s story in a unique way to both customers and the internal team.
We worked closely with their internal creative and comms team on each event to bring their story to life through creative applications of virtual production, remote records and graphics—helping to create a playful, engaging and entertaining experience for their online audiences.
Along the way, we were honored to work with celebrities like Barack and Michelle Obama, George and Amal Clooney, Sir Patrick Stewart, Selena Gomez, Venus Williams, David Grohl, Simu Liu and Trevor Noah.
For SIGNAL 2021, we created a hybrid event with a live keynote from the San Francisco Yerba Buena Theater that was simultaneously webcast to an event site with additional online-only experiences.
For CKO 2021, we created a Star Trek takeoff, using the “Next Generation” as the theme for the story, with Jeff and his “Twilion” crew on a voyage to success.
For CKO 2022, we took the theme “Come Together” and developed fun opener based on the Beatle’s song. We rewrote the lyrics, recording an original arrangement and then animated the opener in the style of “Yellow Submarine” for a creative mashup of music and graphic design.
SIGNAL returned to a virtual format in 2022, shot on a traditional sound stage to support the overall creative direction.
The shows went live in 2023. Jeff left the company in January of 2024.
It was a fun run!
