CASE: SUSE IPO FACTS

From a single line of code we transformed the world

Extraordinary times, require extraordinary solutions: In May 2021, enterprise software company SUSE announced that it would go public. CEO Melissa Di Donato, was the first woman to bring a multi-billion EUR company public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. With a virtual brand experience, we staged the IPO the SUSE way.

CASE: SUSE IPO

Issue

Going public in virtual times

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions, Melissa Di Donato and SUSE employees couldn’t be physically onsite to celebrate SUSE’s IPO on the trading floor of the Deutsche Börse. In order to create an unforgettable experience, we filmed Melissa Di Donato in a XR Studio where she led the IPO Keynote and ceremony and is virtually transported to the Deutsche Börse listing floor. With a virtual projection takeover of the Deutsche Börse facade, we celebrated the innovative and groundbreaking past of the SUSE brand while capturing the company’s aspirations as a publicly listed company.

Solution

Creating the takeover

We accompanied SUSE to bring this milestone event to the next level. To get all the employees on board, we’ve created an internal announcement video, explaining the vision behind going public. A stakeholder facing animatic video was then created to explain the journey from the intent to flow, to the listing floor ceremony.

And, we needed to find a way, to bring Melissa Di Donato on the listing floor, even though Deutsche Börse was closed due to Corona restrictions.

Based on our past experience with the SUSE rebranding and their very distinct culture, we developed a SUSE-like experience concept: A virtual takeover.

We 3D-scanned the Frankfurt Stock exchange venue and created a virtual projection on the building, to tell SUSE’s story and open it up the night before the listing.

We used latest XR studio technology to stage Melissa in an immersive environment and add VR elements to the key note on the day of the listing.

All of that was done in 5 weeks by an interdisciplinary team based in Seattle, London, Cologne, Bonn, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Berlin.

Dear Deloitte Digital Team,

it seems every time SUSE experiences a pivotal moment, there’s only one creative partner we can count on, and that’s you. Please be so proud knowing that you’ve managed the impossible today. You made the listing celebration truly inspiring in an otherwise constricted environment

Thank you all!

IVO TOTEV | CMO SUSE

Virtual launch with real impact

As our aim was to capture the audiences’ attention in an area where they are bombarded with ads. We had to play with scale and take the visual language to the next level - creating a confident, dynamic and iconic look that speaks for itself. Over a million vistors were part of the life SUSE IPO experience with international press covering the event extensively.