Media: 15-minute film; integrated brand & press campaign; events world tour

Credits: Executive Producer & Global Head of Content

Awards: Clio winner; LIA winner

Production Company: Breakwater Studios

In partnership with Publicis Sapient’s CMO and CEO, I developed and produced a series of three 15-minute films that show the human impact of the company’s work. Never Done is the first in that series.

The film tells the story of a woman named Kersten who was set to be evicted on Christmas 2020. Although Congress had passed a historic Emergency Rental Assistance bill, it was up to states, municipalities, and local nonprofits to get those funds distributed to renters in time to avoid their eviction. Publicis Sapient helped a Charlotte-based organization called DreamKey Partners digitize their operations so that they could effectively distribute congressional funds to citizens like Kersten and her family.

This was an experiment in unbranded entertainment— no company branding appears anywhere in the film— and it paid off. I hired Ben Proudfoot to direct — when he later went on to win an Oscar, it turbocharged our press campaign, leading to a half-hour segment about Publicis Sapient on CNBC, plus over 15 articles in outlets such as Adweek and Variety. I introduced the film onstage at its premiere at The New Yorker Festival, and when The New Yorker’s editorial team later posted our trailer on Instagram, it received over 250k views and 3k likes. In total, we received over $5m in earned media, which was well over 20x what it cost to make the film.

We also used the film more tactically as a way to reach industry analysts, who are the most important influencers in the B2B buying community. Some of the top analyst firms in the world, such as IDC, Constellation Research, and HFS, published reports and recommendations for Publicis Sapient based on what they saw in this film, including a #1 ranking in IDC’s MarketScape.

But perhaps most impressive is the impact that this film had on our internal audience of 20k global employees. In 28 screenings across 4 continents, we brought thousands of people together for the first time post-Covid. Seeing the impact of their work on screen in such a unique format brought many of them to tears. This made us realize that we’ve discovered something special with this film — and so we’re now undergoing an effort to redefine our company platform, using “impact” as the key element of Publicis Sapient’s branding moving forward.