GMS Summit: The Festival

The GMS Summit brings together more than 7,000 Facebook employees who are part of its Global Marketing Solutions team. It’s a time to reconnect, talk priorities, network and be inspired. In 2020, for the first time ever, the Summit was forced to go virtual due to the pandemic. And 12 months later, Facebook found itself still at home (many in locked down) craving connections and contact.

That’s why the theme for 2021 was “Reconnect,” with the goal of reconnecting the audience back to the GMS community, with the organization’s mission, and with themselves. Facebook wanted more than a single viewing experience, it wanted to create something that could be shared amongst all attendees to really create a feeling of connection. To bring that to life, we created an experience that evoked a total digital festival experience, channeling energy, togetherness and discovery. The result was a 360-degree engagement extravaganza at every turn.

Our team mapped out the entire attendee journey, making sure we touched festival goers at every turn.

We built a creative approach around the emotional and aesthetic elements of a festival, "stages" to host digital content, digital line up posters, maps, tickets and wristbands and designated virtual spaces for socializing. Leveraging private GMS channels on Facebook’s Workplace and Instagram platforms.

From inspiring talks to celebrity sit downs to entertainment by internet sensations, participants were left with moments of surprise and many, many delights.