Broadcom
Mainframe World Tour Campaign Films
Following Broadcom's acquisition of CA Technologies, the company needed to reintroduce its combined mainframe software portfolio to enterprise customers. The campaign would launch during the Mainframe World Tour, a global roadshow aimed at CIOs and senior technology leaders.
The challenge was not simply explaining the technology. It was reframing the perception of the mainframe itself.
Mainframes run the majority of enterprise production workloads. Financial transactions, airline bookings, insurance claims, and retail systems all depend on them. Yet in a technology landscape dominated by cloud marketing and new platform hype, the mainframe had developed a reputation problem.
CIOs knew their organisations depended on these systems, but they were often forced to justify them internally against misconceptions: that mainframes were outdated, expensive, or incompatible with modern development practices.
Before any product argument could succeed, the perception had to shift.
The campaign was developed as three pieces of film content, each designed to address the problem from a different creative angle while maintaining a consistent visual identity.
The event film opened the conference experience and introduced Broadcom's acquisition of CA Technologies. The concept used a simple metaphor: a powerful muscle car entering a garage and emerging transformed: larger, stronger, unmistakably Broadcom.
The transformation symbolised the acquisition itself: CA Technologies had been a powerful enterprise platform on its own, but combined with Broadcom it became something more formidable.
The film also introduced a custom animated mnemonic for the Broadcom brand mark, visually demonstrating the idea of connection that sits at the heart of the company's identity.
The first narrative film used a simple metaphor built around coffee.
A series of drinks appears in the same locked camera frame: espresso, cappuccino, iced coffee, frappé. Each variation changes the presentation but returns to the same core ingredient.
The message was simple: innovation builds on a strong foundation. Just as every coffee drink begins with espresso, modern digital services continue to rely on the core computing power of the mainframe.
The restrained visual style, with its minimal composition, precise motion, and clean typography, reinforced the clarity of the argument.
Rather than using analogy, the film confronted common misconceptions about the mainframe head‑on. Words like EXPENSIVE, COMPLEX, STAGNANT, and BORING appeared on screen before being dismantled one by one.
The film then reframed the platform as OPEN, FRICTIONLESS, and OPTIMIZED: a system capable of supporting modern DevOps practices, automation, and large‑scale analytics.
Across the pitch process, five creative concepts were presented. Broadcom ultimately selected the "Supercharged" concept for the event film and, unusually, commissioned both CIO film concepts rather than choosing between them.
The final campaign provided Broadcom with a complete storytelling toolkit for the Mainframe World Tour: an event opener introducing the new entity and two narrative films designed to help CIO audiences rethink the role of the mainframe in modern enterprise infrastructure.