Workday Steps onto the World’s Biggest Advertising Stage with Rock and Roll Icons

We all feel it—the pace of change continues to accelerate. At Workday, we are shaping the new world of work, to ensure that our customers can adapt and thrive in a changing world. More than 50% of the Fortune 500 rely on Workday every day to manage their two most important assets—their people and their money.

We love our customers and, based on our 97% customer satisfaction rating, they may even love us right back. We’ve celebrated them in many different ways, and now we’re ready to shine a stadium-sized spotlight on what it means to be a rock star in the workplace with our first-ever commercial at the Big Game on Sunday, February 12. 

"This ad reflects the evolution of our brand over the past 17 years to where we are today, and supports the next stage of our growth," says Pete Schlampp, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of corporate growth. "With more than 60 million people using our products, we are a household name. We see being part of the Big Game as an immense opportunity to show up for and entertain new and diverse audiences."

Workday gives finance, HR, and IT teams the power to adapt to whatever comes their way without missing a beat. Those teams are often unsung heroes in an organization, and we want to celebrate them for the rock stars of business that they are. 

True to our value of fun, we tapped a few rock and roll icons to help us turn the volume up to 11. We’re excited to reveal our commercial, “Rock Star”:

“Workday knows that it takes a ‘rock star’ to drive transformation, keep employees engaged, and run businesses efficiently,” Pete says. “If you high-five your co-workers as a rock star after seeing our ad in the Big Game, that’s a win in our book.”

The ad includes five iconic rock stars: Gary Clark Jr., Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne, and Paul Stanley. We had a blast working with this tremendous talent, and hope you’re as entertained as we are. Directed by Jim Jenkins, the ad was shot across five locations in the Los Angeles area, including the Orpheum Theater and the Greek Theater.

“‘Rock Star’ builds on the success of our ‘Workday. For a Changing World.’ brand platform, and does it in a way that’s true to Workday,” says Gene Bordegaray, Workday vice president and executive creative director. “Creating this commercial and the surrounding campaign has been a months-long labor of love across Workday, from creative and media to PR and employee communications. Our agency partners at Ogilvy have been amazing to work with, and worked hand-in-hand with Workday to bring this to life in so many exciting ways.”

“When we first got the brief we knew we needed to show up and show up big for this one,” says Lisa Bright, chief creative officer at Ogilvy California. “We love the fresh, smart concept, and ‘director king’ Jim Jenkins brought that extra level of flair and visuals to stand out on February 12.”

While the commercial at the Big Game is a high point of this campaign, it’s not the final end zone. The campaign will continue to show up in fun ways through the year. “Along with our brand media agency, Merkle, we’ve built a multifaceted media approach to reach our audiences, covering not just the Big Game, but other top-tier targeted media placements and extensions including the NFC Championship game, social, video, and search,” says Samantha Stuart, Workday’s senior director of media.

‘Rock Star’ is also in the running for best commercial. If you’re inspired, you can register and vote on all the commercials from the Big Game at USA TODAY Ad Meter. You can register to vote today; the voting doors open on February 8 and close at 10 p.m. Pacific time on February 12. You can also share our commercial on social using #RealRockStar.

Make sure to watch the Big Game to see our commercial. We’ll be rolling out more ads—and more fun—from this campaign as the year goes on, so keep an eye out and rock on, Workday community.