A productivity platform’s features are not the world’s most riveting news, so agency, Brand New School, turned Slack’s features into an eye-popping comedic musical.  

In the film, directed and co-written by Brand New School creative director, Chris Dooley, a sales team uses Slack to prepare for a customer meeting, and a central character insists on making it a big production – lyrically calling for fancy graphs, searching through files and emails, and gathering the stats, and sparkling water, he believes will make the meeting successful. Meanwhile, his co-workers use Slack’s tools and features to get work done, with the film coming to a close as the lead realises that all he needs is Slack.

Squeak E. Clean creative director, Julie B. Nichols, creative-directed and composed the musical, as well as contributing vocals with Squeak senior post producer, Angelina Phengphong, and Tice Oakfield. Squeak E. Clean also mixed the music. 

Dooley commented, “We’ve been working directly with Slack for about three years, so we have a deeply personal insight into the platform, the wonderful people running it, and their priorities. When they said they wanted to focus on productivity, we identified early on that there is a misconception that peak productivity requires non-stop work. Based on this insight, we pitched a musical that playfully illustrates the fallacy of constant work leading to optimal productivity, and Slack was on board with it; it represented the tone, voice, and strategy everyone wanted.”

The campaign aims to overcome misconception that it is just a direct message tool. Slack is the AI-powered productivity platform. The film resolves the mistaken belief that peak productivity means non-stop work, with the tagline, productivity without the big production, emphasising the point.

“Brand New School are exceptional creative partners whose breadth and depth of creativity and production capabilities know no bounds,” stated Colin McRae, VP of global brand marketing & Creative strategy at Slack. “With ‘The Big Meeting,’ we wanted to showcase Slack’s latest innovations, enabling effortless productivity in a delightfully unexpected way. This clever musical film playfully brings to life how features like automation, search, and integrations reduce busywork while improving team collaboration – all through a whimsical spirit true to Slack.”