Zoom looks to reshape its story with its biggest brand campaign yet

The explosion in work-from-home culture in 2020 pushed a lot of businesses to the brink.

Not Zoom. Instead, the video conferencing tool saw exponentially increased usage and invaluable brand recognition as many industries shifted to remote work. Now, with the future of work morphing once again in the age of AI, the tech company is taking a moment to announce that it, too, can change with the times.

In a new brand campaign helmed by Saturday Night Live and Las Culturistas’s Bowen Yang, Zoom is aiming to position itself as more than just a meeting platform, according to CMO Kimberly Storin. In an ad called “I Use Zoom,” Yang plays a villainous IT manager who refuses to let his employees choose their work software, while the supporting cast of characters declare their love for Zoom’s various features, including new AI features.

The spot, which takes inspiration from films like Office Space and Dead Poets Society, came to life with input from more of the SNL crew, including director Mike Diva, who has directed shorts for the comedy series, and writer and “Weekend Update” cohost Colin Jost, who wrote and produced the spot through his agency, No Notes.

The ad is set to air on December 31 during the College Football Playoffs, and it will have continued digital, social, and experiential support in 2026, with an additional regional Super Bowl preshow placement on February 8.

“This is really our opportunity to reshape the Zoom story out in the market and stay true to [our] heritage,” Storin told Marketing Brew. “We’re not starting from scratch. We’re really focused on telling the story of who we are, but also ensuring that we’re changing perceptions, because Zoom is so much more than just meetings and and a lot of people haven’t seen that evolution.”

Zooming in

While Zoom may be considered B2B software, the campaign is designed to appeal directly to consumers. Storin said this strategy was born out of feedback from its customers reflected primarily through Net Promoter Scores, which showed that 100% of its customers prefer Zoom over other platforms.

“I kept hearing over and over again this love for the platform [and] genuine love for software, which is unique,” Storin said. “We’re starting to see that transcend beyond meetings.”

In the spot, Yang attempts to mandate the usage of a nameless, confusing tech software, prompting the employees to rise up in protest and advocate for Zoom and its features, including the AI companion, contact center, and translation capabilities. Storin said that the desire to spotlight its AI capabilities was motivated not by the larger cultural shift toward AI usage in the workplace, but from the software’s new products aimed at addressing consumer pain points.

“We are not AI washing. We have developed a point of view around federated AI, which is taking the best of every AI model and leveraging it as a way to minimize meeting friction,” she said. “I think that’s different than some of the other companies that are out there who are trying to meet this moment in a way that’s not really anchored on a workflow.”

The campaign’s humorous approach benefitted from having some comedy veterans at the helm, which was a major point of focus: when Zoom’s team approached No Notes for this ad, Storin said, it was with the aim of leveraging the agency’s ability to craft humor and understand the brand’s place in culture.

“We see Amy Poehler in her Good Hang podcast on Zoom with the comedians up front. We heard Alex Cooper recently talking about how she met her now-husband in a Zoom work meeting,” Storin said. “Zoom is just such a part of the fabric of this culture, and we felt like Colin and his team could help us be culturally relevant and capitalize on the fact that we are part of the zeitgeist.”

Connection request

With the ad set to appear on college football’s biggest stage and an additional run ahead of the Big Game, Zoom will continue with its sports audience focus, which took off in a big way when the company began its sponsorship of the MLB’s replay review in 2023. Zoom’s marketing team may also consider building out IRL marketing activations, Storin noted.

So why not go for one of the most coveted spots in sports advertising and air during the Super Bowl itself? Storin said that while this campaign is a major one, she’s being careful about ROI.

“I didn’t want to come out of the gate and just go so big, because the company hasn’t been here before,” she said. “It was really important that we show the value, that we show the return on the investment, and that we make really smart decisions in terms of reach[ing] the broadest audience.”