Spark became one of the most important tentpole moments of the year for Toast, energizing customers, prospects and investors with the innovations that they care about most.

Objective

As the lead Creative Director for Spark since Spark’s inception, my goal was to transform Toast's product launches into must-see innovation moments and make it fit into our annual campaign creative strategy. After Toast's IPO, our objective shifted to building even greater momentum with customer, prospects and investors around these launches, emphasizing Toast’s continuous expansion and commitment to better serving its customers through ongoing innovation.

Results

Over nearly four years, we continuously evolved our strategy with each launch to meet the changing needs of our customers. What started as a virtual event grew into a compelling series of release spotlight videos, and now, its latest form: a dynamic web experience that captures the breadth of our innovations. Spark became a natural extension of the annual campaign, leveraging the campaign visual language and messaging, while maintaining a distinctive flair.

Updated twice a year, the web platform showcases Toast’s latest innovations, with each refresh tailored to tell a unique product story based on the featured offerings. The core site serves as a flexible template, streamlining the process for web partners while allowing dedicated areas for customization and moments of visual impact. Although the website remains central, we tailor each launch to be supported by fresh graphics, UI animations, renderings, videos, and copy to enhance the storytelling as needed.

Working closely with the product team, we created a custom video that showcased Toast’s innovation process. The video featured both customers and Toast product experts collaborating on the development of the Toast Now app, offering viewers a unique insight into how innovation happens at Toast.

Some key outcomes from Spark 2023: