In today’s fast-evolving tech landscape, where audiences are fragmented across screens and channels, storytelling must go beyond traditional formats to truly resonate.
The MSG Sphere offers the perfect stage to push storytelling boundaries and create moments of collective wonder. Because connection isn’t singular, it’s shared. At a time when the “group gasp” has become the new holy grail of modern marketing, there’s no better place to inspire audiences than inside Sphere.
The Central Creative Idea: Scaling Human Ambition
As HPE’s creative partner for eight years, we’ve crafted B2B and B2C stories that make complex technology accessible. For their Discover 2025 event and our second collaboration at Sphere, we were one of three agencies tasked with choreographing CEO Antonio Neri’s keynote, where he centered his messaging on the extraordinary power of human ambition, the profound impact we can have on the world, and HPE’s unmatched ability to partner and scale those ambitions.
Collaborating closely with HPE’s leadership team, we played a key role in putting this central idea into motion, helping propel the strategy and ensure a cohesive emotional experience amid the intricate coordination.
One Single Thought
We created a series of films that brought this theme to life across the Keynote, each beginning with a singular idea that ignites ambition, lone musical note in the Opening Film, a cruise date in the Carnival app, one molecule driving breakthroughs at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a baby representing the origin of learning for Skild AI, and in the Closing Film, an astronaut embodying where ambition can take us next. Because the most valuable metric in marketing isn’t impressions, it’s collective wonder that resonates and endures, like the Carnival ship moment that had the crowd reaching for their phones, or the SKILD humanoid capturing the audience itself.
Each moment carried a sense of possibility while seamlessly weaving in HPE’s newly refreshed brand, one that reflects its sharpened story, clarified role in an AI-first world, and unmistakable position as a leader in essential enterprise technology. The films became a way not only to inspire, but also to introduce audiences to a brand identity built to scale ambition on the global stage.
Discover 2024
Unlock Ambition
For Discover 2024 and HPE’s first endeavor at Sphere, we produced three immersive films showcasing HPE’s collaborations with BMW, GE Aerospace, and their sports partners. We aimed to blend technology with human emotion, creating a powerful impact.
The narrative highlighted HPE’s commitment to advancing AI and human intelligence, demonstrating how their IT, cloud, data, and security solutions drive innovation and invite audiences to rethink technology’s potential.
The illustration of the person alongside the keynote films montage emphasizes the human scale of the final output, a detail that's hard to capture in images alone.
Behind-the-scenes photos from the live-action shoot on the LED volume stage above.
Partnering to Push Boundaries Bringing ‘Unlock Ambition’ to life required a fresh approach. Using 4D haptics, LED volume stages, and 7.1 spatial audio, we showcased technology in an unprecedented way.
Shooting on an LED volume stage required meticulous prep but delivered near-final content with minimal post-production, making it ideal for this tech-forward project.
Partnering with Sphere Studios, we brought the 160,000-square-foot screen to life, ensuring every detail contributed to a fully immersive experience.
Showtime
It’s challenging to convey the ‘Sphere effect’ on a flat screen, but witnessing 17,000 people — many of them tech experts — engage with the story and applaud the work was a moment of true impact.
