Synopsys
Illustrating how one company plays an integral role in all of our devices

The technology created by Synopsys can be found at the core of virtually every digital device we use today. The company makes the world’s most advanced tools for chip design, verification, IP integration, and application security testing. Every company that builds computer chips uses Synopsys’ software—Synopsys is the intel inside of Intel.


What Synopsys does is so deeply embedded in our tech that it’s invisible to most people. GDP was tasked with spearheading an ad campaign and the creation of a website that would help the company build awareness about its offerings, particularly among key Silicon Valley C-suite executives and IT department leaders.


The message we devised put Synopsys at the heart of the new era of smart, secure everything—from silicon to software. We demonstrated this by showing a few of the many things that Synopsys enables: automotive innovations, the cloud, artificial intelligence, 5G networks, data centers, etc.

Our challenge: tell the story of a vital, but virtually invisible, element of the technology we use—without making it seem small and insignificant.

We used the cube as a visual metaphor for what the company enables. The top is the visible layer, a cityscape that resembles a motherboard. The sides of the cube display chip architecture and code, conveying the message that Synopsys chips and software underlie all of the tech that we see around us every day.

The message we devised is that Synopsys is at the heart of the new era of smart, secure everything—from silicon to software.
The visual metaphor had to be easy to parse in a variety of banner ad formats.

We wanted to get maximum value from our advertising spend, so we chose a placement that was tailored to reach the sort of executives, decision makers, possible customers, and potential new hires that Synopsys was targeting. We blanketed the domestic and international terminals of San Francisco International Airport, garnering 10 million impressions of our digital ads and over 180 million impressions of our billboards.

SFO was the perfect place to reach the audiences at which the campaign was aimed.