Zoom is leaning into comedy to push its brand beyond video conferencing.
The software firm has partnered with a master of the form: SNL alumnus Colin Jost, who launched his production studio, No Notes, specifically to work with brand marketers.
Zoom enjoys extraordinary brand awareness, head of brand and activation Whitney Magnuson told the audience at ADWEEK’s Brandweek conference. But that recognition is narrowly tied to video calls, even as the company has expanded into contact center software, AI tools, and sales and revenue products.
Rather than lean on emotion like Google or features like Microsoft, Zoom’s marketing team decided the brand needed to “go iconic,” Magnuson told ADWEEK chief content officer Zoe Ruderman.
“We really leaned into the value that Zoom was already part of culture, the fact that people were using Zoom as a verb, the way people relied on Zoom in movies and TV shows to advance plot points,” she said. “We felt like we had permission to lean in in a way that a lot of brands didn’t.”
That thinking led Zoom to Jost’s No Notes, which the company first partnered with on its “Zoom Ahead” campaign last December. The newest spot, in which Zoom comedically plots its own destruction, drew internal debate before it aired.
“We had many meetings over the concept,” Magnuson said. “But we got to a point where we said, ‘Let’s make it the way Colin envisioned it, trust the comedy, and trust that we wouldn’t get pushback internally.’”
Jost, who joined Brandweek remotely via Zoom, said No Notes grew out of his years writing commercial parodies at SNL and a desire to pitch brand ideas directly rather than through a traditional agency.
“The biggest leap is making something that you think is funny,” Jost said. “That’s such a relentless process to get right.”
