Microsoft’s annual START conference is a Global Sales meeting for their Consumer and Device Sales (CDS) division, the highest revenue generator in the entire organization. The conference has several goals: reflecting on the year passed and establishing strategy for building on its successes, setting ambitious targets for the year to come, and getting the sales team excited about the Company’s new products. Zed Ink has created and run this event for Microsoft for over 10 years – while inviting our team to lead the creative direction in four of the last six shows. Over the course of three days, 1,500 sales management professionals from around the world meet in Seattle and participate in immersive training.

Must haves include: a general session keynote, for which we design the stage and create all the opening media and video roll-ins, along with doing the creative for the theme, logos, and interstitial animation bumpers; an awards ceremony for the achievements of the fiscal year just passed; and a big party, where we shoot video coverage, an edit of which is delivered the next day and run as a closing moment of the keynote general session. This is a critically important internal event for Microsoft, and it’s our honor to continue to help keep it fun and fresh for them.