Most brands just buy media.
We built a cultural presence.

Great B2B brands don't just run campaigns. They show up in places that matter to the people they want to reach — and they do it with enough consistency and creativity that it stops feeling like marketing and starts feeling like taste.

At ServiceNow, we built a sponsorship and cultural partnership portfolio around that belief. Here's what it looks like in practice.

Idris Elba — More Than a Face

When we cast Idris Elba as our brand ambassador, we weren't buying celebrity. We were making a bet on a man whose values, stature, and cultural credibility aligned with where we wanted to take the brand.

That bet has compounded. Idris didn't just headline our campaigns — he closed Knowledge, our flagship customer event, with a DJ set at Sphere in Las Vegas. He's since been named TIME Magazine's cover for impactful philanthropy and was knighted by the King of England. Our partnership extends to Sherbro Island, where we're doing meaningful work together that goes well beyond a commercial brief.

Tribeca — Brand as Cultural Producer

We didn't sponsor the Tribeca Film Festival. We made two films for it.

Then we built customer and partner experiences around those screenings — turning a film festival into a platform for the kind of conversation you can't have in a conference room.

Acquired — Storytelling Inside the Sponsorship

When we became a sponsor of Acquired — the breakout podcast about the world's greatest companies — we didn't just buy a pre-roll. We built a chapter-by-chapter history of ServiceNow told by hosts Ben and David, and created an interview segment with our CMO Colin Fleming that gave listeners real substance, not a sales pitch.

Acquired has since become essential listening for operators and investors. We were early, and we made the most of it.

Laver Cup & the World of Tennis

Our partnership with the Laver Cup gave us access to one of sport's great theatrical stages — and we used it to create genuine experiences for customers and partners, not just logo placement.

It also led us to sponsoring Served, the number one tennis podcast, hosted by Andy Roddick. Brand recognition that lives in the ears of a highly engaged, affluent audience — week after week.

Aston Martin F1 — Money-Can't-Buy Experiences

Formula 1 reaches the exact audience we want: global, high-stakes, performance-obsessed. Our partnership with Aston Martin Aramco gave us credibility in that world — and more importantly, gave our customers access to experiences that no amount of gifting or hospitality budgets can replicate.

GP weekends around the world. Paddock access. Moments people talk about for years.

The Company Store — Swag With Swagger

This one sounds small. It isn't.

We rebuilt the ServiceNow company store from the ground up — because the merch a company puts its name on says something about its taste. Ours now does.

The Through-Line

None of these are accidents. Each one was a deliberate choice to show up somewhere meaningful, with something worth saying, for an audience worth reaching. Together, they add up to something more valuable than any single campaign: a brand that people actually want to be associated with.

We didn't scale a conference.
We built a movement.

Enterprise software conferences are, almost without exception, forgettable. Endless sessions. Generic keynotes. Booths nobody wants to visit. People go because they have to.

We decided Knowledge would be the exception. Not a bigger conference — a business festival. Something people wanted to come to. Something that turned customers, partners, and the broader community into genuine brand believers.

That's a different ambition. It requires a different kind of thinking.

The Scale

Attendance grew because people came back and brought their colleagues. I have the scars and the receipts.

Three Audiences. One Stage.

What a Business Festival Means

Every detail is a brand statement — programming, production, food, flow, transitions. The standard wasn't "better than last year." It was better than anything else in the industry.

Inspiration

We brought in voices that made people think differently about business, creativity, and leadership.

The Team Behind It

You can't build a business festival with a conference planning team. The ambition requires different people.

As Knowledge has scaled, we've built what I believe is the best events team in the business. That means producers and logistics people, yes — but also creative people who think about this the way architects think about buildings. People who want Knowledge to be to ServiceNow what the Apple Store is to Apple: a physical expression of what the brand believes, done at a standard that makes you feel it the moment you walk in.

That kind of team doesn't just execute. They protect something. They push back when a decision would compromise the experience. They lose sleep over details that most people would never notice — because they know the cumulative effect of getting everything right is something you can't fake.

What It Compounds Into

The question stopped being "are you going to Knowledge?" and started being "how do we make the most of Knowledge?"

That shift is what belief looks like at scale.