GMS 1World Summit is an annual, internal conference for Facebook’s global marketing and sales organization with an attendance of over 6,000 employees. The Summit aims to connect attendees to the company mission, their goals, and each other, while inspiring them and reigniting their passion for the organization’s work. But three weeks prior to the 2020 show date, the live event was cancelled due to growing concerns over the COVID-19 outbreak. So, we decided to offer Facebook a solution that would allow the show to go on. Virtually.

We worked with Facebook to turn the Summit into an Un-summit – a broadcast experience with 17 TV episodes which were carefully scripted, filmed, edited and produced in less than four weeks.

Episodes were packaged into 7 programming blocks and released on Facebook’s internal channels, allowing employees to stream them on-demand. We kept the audience engaged throughout the experience with live polling, a dedicated #unsummiting hashtag on Instagram and AR filters. We then immortalized the experience with a giant photo mosaic that was displayed online and live at the Facebook Partner Center in NYC.

Thousands of employees were #unsummitting! (the official event hashtag). Tens of thousands of views later, people were inspired, educated, and engaged. We did it. All by working together and creatively to adapt content for a new format.