To unpack the immense challenges of the race to exascale and create awareness around it, we took experts out of the lab and placed them in front of the camera to explain the real-world impact of their work and HPE’s critical role to help the U.S. win it — turning highly technical, incredibly dense material into a common language we all could share. The visuals needed to be inspiring, but unambiguous; the voiceovers colloquial, while still technical. We knew this couldn’t be the classic subject matter expert talking head video. It required real ambition and gravitas to pay off the gravity of the stakes.

When done right, longform content still has the ability to resonate broadly. All six-plus minutes were necessary to tell the full story, and people remained engaged throughout. Anchored by a bespoke landing page experience to launch the film, we created supporting social cutdowns to succinctly tell the story, also housed in custom ad units.

We tailored and amplified those cuts, driving back to the landing page and deeper into HPE’s related pages on their O&O. Using first and third-party data sources to target the most relevant users. “Eighteen Zeros” reached a very precise audience. The primary audience was ITDMs, BDMs, and politically-minded people; in a secondary flight, new social cutdowns were created for science and news consumers driving to the full experience. Through targeting and strength of content, we were able to accomplish both a connection with our audience and generally place HPE ahead of the exascale conversation.

• 3.1MM video views of the original film

• 55% of film watched by average viewer of the nearly seven-minute video

• Over 17,000 social actions

• Over 912 cumulative hours spent watching the video during the first flight; a publisher record

“Eighteen Zeros” aimed to gain awareness of HPE’s position on a critical area of innovation to both a niche endemic and general audience, tackling very dense, technical material, but delivering in a universally understandable way that didn’t dumb down the subject matter. We knew that the way to gain this awareness and the specificity involved to connect to those niche viewers was through data and constantly optimizing against it. Through smart targeting and strength of content, we were able to accomplish both a connection with our audience and generally place Hewlett Packard Enterprise ahead of the exascale conversation.

For this campaign, we targeted Washington D.C. policy makers as well as I.T. Decision Makers. Among the audience driven to the video, we saw: D.C. Policy Makers, I.T. Decision-Makers, and active and educated individuals. In a latter flight, we targeted space and futurist-news enthusiasts.

We knew that trying to convey a topic as intricate and significant as exascale supercomputing required a grander execution — one that had the credibility to connect with HPE’s ITDM (I.T. Decision-Maker) and BDM (Business Decision-Maker) audience who makes impactful tech decisions within their respective organization and the accessibility for the general politically-minded and science-curious public to digest, so we brought the story’s stakes to life through a shortform original film.

Great leaps in technology can change the course of human history — and whoever controls that technology, can write the future. In 2017, the U.S. Government tapped six elite teams to build the fastest supercomputer on the planet. HPE was one of those six that accepted the challenge. Thusly, we needed a way to unpack their significant stake to help the U.S. win this most-important race, exploring the power and possibilities of exascale computing for the right audience. Why are the stakes for the U.S. so high? It is the space race of this century and decision-makers needed to hear this message, loud and clear.