The cloud business is booming. Last year, companies spent $270 billion on cloud services. The tech world’s biggest names each spend millions on marketing, sales and advertising, frequently referred to as the “Cloud Wars.”

And while Google is a market leader, Google Cloud is a challenger…and outspent 10 to 1. We needed IT decision makers, C-level executives and developers…and our competition…to know that we’re here to play.

So when our #1 competitor, Amazon Web Services (AWS), overlooked prime real estate during their biggest event of the year…we crashed the party..

Tech events are the bread and butter of the cloud computing industry. It’s where you engage customers, announce new products and partnerships, offer demos and experiences and most importantly, make deals - many millions of dollars’ worth. After a lull during the pandemic, this year saw 100+ in-person events, attended by thousands of global IT buyers and software developers. In the US, the biggest ones are usually held in Las Vegas…most notably by the largest cloud company in the world, Amazon Web Services (or AWS).

Las Vegas is also home to the new technological, architectural and cultural phenomenon known as Sphere. Hosting U2 concerts and Darren Aronovsky’s latest film, the arena is the largest spherical structure in the world…and, one of the largest advertising screens available anywhere.

In 2023, those two seemingly unrelated elements collided and offered a once-in-a-million opportunity for a challenger to steal the show.

re:Invent, AWS’s annual global cloud conference, was held in Las Vegas, Nevada in November of 2023, right next door to Sphere, the impossible-to-miss largest screen in the world located just off the Vegas Strip. When AWS failed to secure the media placement there during their event, we did, taking it over with a larger-than-life brand experience that was unmistakably Google Cloud. We showed up at a party we weren’t invited to and pivoted attention away from re: Invent onto us.

While Google is a market leader, Google Cloud is a challenger in its category. As such, we have to behave and communicate like challengers—come up with creative, out-of-the-box ways to appeal to our audience whose attention is captivated by the #1 and #2 players who dominate the market, each spending hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising per year.

The creative was a brand animation on Sphere that was unapologetically bold and unmistakably Google Cloud. We animated one million data particles moving 360 around the sphere forming our brand icon and revealing our brand message "The new way to cloud". We hid an easter egg within the creative which if spotted by developers and entered into the Google Cloud programming console, would lead to a discount allowing attendees at the competing tech conference to attend our upcoming event for half the price.

Google is known for search, but for cloud computing we are a challenger brand. AWS re: Invent hosted developers and IT decision-makers from across the world, the same target audience for our cloud event, due to take place in the same place a few months later. We redirected their attendees' attention to Google Cloud, informing them we're a contender, all while building buzz for our future event – simply by securing the media placement they grossly overlooked right next door to their venue.

The creative is housed in one million particles moving throughout the world's largest screen to reveal our brand message "The new way to cloud." We wanted to create an unmissable animated brand sculpture right next door to our competitor's event. Once the opportunity presented itself, the team acted quickly to create a brand animation that would live on the world's largest screen, developing and producing the creative in less than 6 weeks – the Sphere team noting that this was one of the fastest, engaging, and unique activations done by a brand to-date.

• 38,906 earned engagements

• Over half a million impressions

• Exceeded easter egg code activation benchmark by 220%, driving our registration numbers up.

• Helped beat registration goal, netting over 30,000 attendees for our 2024 Cloud Next conference

• 625 social media and press mentions

• 550+ minutes of airtime during the week of competitors event