Since its founding in 1999, Salesforce has been a bold and purpose-driven brand. Though the company has grown dramatically, our commitment to our stakeholders, not just to shareholders, has remained our North Star.

So when we saw fellow business leaders taking off for space travel and the metaverse at a time when so many issues plague Earth, we wanted to take a provocative stand that felt true to our disruptor roots. We wanted to rally business decision makers with a reminder of all the good they can do here on Earth. And we needed to bring it to life in a way that was authentically and unconditionally Salesforce.

Our objectives were simple: Get a massive audience to remember — and create buzz around — our message. Beyond entertainment value, the work needed to engage, empower, and drive interest in Salesforce and our mission to inspire positive change on Earth.

Our creative idea was to take a bold stand for our home planet by urging people everywhere, especially business leaders, to rally around #TeamEarth instead of escaping for starry pastures. How to deliver such a human message? With our endearingly human creative partner, Matthew McConaughey, whose charming, affable personality put the perfect twinkle on our tour de Earth.

With the creative insight that our audience is weary of values-led lip service, we needed to take a clear, bold position on real issues in a world where our (tech) counterparts are often all talk. We decided the best way to amplify our message would be through the world’s biggest sporting events, events that unite the world in a spirit of partnership and positivity where we could remind our fellow earthlings that no matter who you’re rooting for, we’re all on #TeamEarth.

Strategically, we wanted to communicate our core belief that business is the greatest platform for change, and inspire others to join us. And what better change to champion than positive change that benefits ALL the stakeholders — customers, employees, partners, communities, societies — of planet Earth? To do that, our message needed to show that values and purpose aren’t just nice-to-haves but rather fundamental elements of any successful business in 2022.

To prove this connection between values and business, we conducted a quantitative study of 550 of our core audience of IT and business decision makers. The key insight we uncovered was that taking a stand for values isn’t seen as a “nice-tohave” for BDMs but is in fact critical inbuying decisions, with 90% of BDMs saying a vendor’s values impact the BDM’s business.

Team Earth is a big idea that needed a big, relevant platform. Our implementation included two of the biggest sporting events of 2022: the Olympics and the Super Bowl. Not only did this attract millions of eyeballs, but helped us contextually communicate that whoever you’re rooting for, we’re all on #TeamEarth.

As a corporate sponsor of Team USA, we chose the February 2022 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic games for the debut of our “New Frontier” commercial and ran it heavily during both events. To generate even more engagement, we ran the spot during Super Bowl LVI on February 13, right in the middle of the games. Our message was heard loud and clear.

We also built out the campaign with an integrated presence across digital, social, and print, all adding up to the biggest and most successful ad blitz in Salesforce history.

Results exceeded our expectations. Our goal of reaching a massive audience was achieved with 820 million impressions.

The work broke through with recall up 15% compared to our previous Olympics campaign. NBCU’s research showed message memorability in the 81st percentile for all Super Bowl LVI ads and 78th percentile for brand memorability.

We didn’t just capture our audience’s attention, we held it. Scoring 121 on iSpot’s attention index against the genpop audience, we had 21% fewer interrupted ad plays than average.

According to social media research by Synthesia, we garnered more buzz than any other Olympics advertiser and significantly higher positive sentiment (62%).

The buzz grew massively during the Super Bowl, with NBCU’s research showing us in the 94th percentile for search, more than nearly every ad in this year’s Super Bowl. And it was in the 82nd percentile for search among ALL ads in the last nine Super Bowls.