The best HR tech marketing campaigns turn payroll and onboarding pain into a joke, a customer story or a number reporters want. Gusto reported 23.6 million impressions from customer-creators, 6.8 times its goal. Papaya Global said its first Super Bowl ad tripled website traffic. Rippling, Workday and Deel bought mass attention with comedy and celebrity, and ADP built a data report.
Which HR tech campaigns made this list?
This list covers seven HR tech marketing campaigns from Gusto, Papaya Global, Rippling, Workday, Deel and ADP, each with a named company, a dated launch and a public source.
Only two of the seven, the Gusto creator campaign and Papaya Global's debut Super Bowl ad, come with published performance numbers, and both sets of numbers come from the company or its vendor. The other five are included because trade press or the company documents the creative, the format or the data behind them. Each entry says so when no results were published.
| Campaign | Company | Format | Reported result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer-creator campaign | Gusto | Instagram and TikTok creators | 23.6M impressions, 6.8x goal |
| "Small Balls. Big Game." | Papaya Global | Super Bowl LVIII ad | 114M views, 3x website traffic |
| "Rule Your Business" | Rippling | Super Bowl LX ad, five-ad series | None published |
| "Rock Star" | Workday | Super Bowl LVII ad plus press, social and out-of-home | None published |
| "A Future With Gusto" | Gusto | Four-part film series | None published |
| "The world is your squad" | Deel | Arsenal hero film and content series | None published |
| National Employment Report | ADP | Payroll data report | Built on data from 26M+ employees |
What are the seven best HR tech marketing campaigns?
The seven campaigns below start with the two that published numbers, then move through the campaigns documented by trade press and company releases.
1. Gusto customer-creator campaign
Gusto recruited 17 small business creators, 14 of whom already used its payroll software, and reached 23.6 million impressions against a 3.5 million target, according to an impact.com case study. The same study reports 3.7 million influencer reach, 2.2 times its goal, and 225,000 link clicks, 1.8 times its goal. impact.com helped Gusto recruit the creators and published the study, so the figures are vendor reported.
Creators told personal stories in their feeds and kept promotional details to captions and Stories. Seven of them cross-posted on Instagram and TikTok, and paid amplification on both platforms pushed impressions past the original target. The timing matched tax season, when switching payroll tools is hardest to ignore. Brands planning a similar program can start with 5W's influencer marketing cost guide.
Why it works: Stories from real customers read as advice from another owner, not as an ad, and tax season gave the audience a reason to act immediately.
2. Papaya Global "Small Balls. Big Game."
Papaya Global, a workforce payroll and payments platform, debuted at Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024 with a 30-second spot called "Small Balls. Big Game." Creative agency McCann Tech built it around a CFO who duplicates himself and self-bouncing ping-pong balls, according to LBB. In a January 2025 release, Papaya said the ad reached 114 million views and tripled traffic to its website, and it announced a second spot built on a life-size Whac-a-Mole game.
Both figures are company reported. TechCrunch reported that a 30-second slot cost $7 million that year and that direct return would be hard to track. It also reported that, according to Jessica Malamud, Papaya Global's vice president of brand and communication, standing out was a big part of the reason for the buy.
Why it works: A duplicating CFO and bouncing ping-pong balls showed a payroll problem, too much to track at once, in seconds, and returning in 2025 turned a one-time buy into a repeat channel.
3. Rippling "Rule Your Business"
Rippling, a workforce management platform, ran its first Super Bowl ad during Super Bowl LX in February 2026. The 30-second spot stars comedian Tim Robinson, known for the Netflix series I Think You Should Leave, as a would-be mastermind whose plan to drop a monster into a city stalls because the new hire has not been onboarded and his harness has not cleared finance, according to LBB. Agency Tombras created the ad and Zach Tavel directed it.
Adweek reported that the spot opened a five-ad campaign called "Rule Your Business" and that Rippling had about 30,000 customers at the time. Nick Wiesner, Rippling's vice president of brand, described the buy as a shift from performance marketing to mass awareness. Rippling later built three follow-up spots in-house, set in a go-kart racing business, a landscape architecture firm and a cryotherapy spa, according to LBB's report on the follow-up.
Rippling has not published results for the campaign in the sources reviewed. Creatives quoted by Adweek's reaction piece questioned how many Super Bowl viewers are in a position to buy enterprise software.
Why it works: A failed villain plan dramatized what disconnected HR, IT and finance systems cost a business, and a planned five-ad series gave the idea a life beyond one night of airtime.
4. Workday "Rock Star"
Workday, a provider of finance and human resources software, ran its "Rock Star" commercial at the Super Bowl on February 12, 2023. Gary Clark Jr., Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne and Paul Stanley appear in an ad that objects to corporations calling employees rock stars, according to Workday's newsroom. The campaign also used national press ads, social media and digital out-of-home placements.
Pete Schlampp, Workday's chief marketing officer, said in a Workday blog post that the ad reflects the brand's evolution over 17 years and builds on its "Workday. For a Changing World." platform. Workday did not publish sales or traffic results in the sources reviewed.
Why it works: The ad mocked a phrase HR and finance teams hear every day, so viewers recognized the joke before Workday named a product, and real rock musicians gave the mockery authority.
5. Gusto "A Future With Gusto"
Gusto released "A Future With Gusto" in August 2025, a four-part film series produced by Epoch Films and directed by Dugan Gundelfinger, according to Ads of the World. Each film opens with a small business owner in the middle of a workday when a more stylish, more confident future version of that owner appears, per Shots. Chien Hwang, Gusto's head of creative, said the series shows owners becoming the best versions of themselves.
Gusto has not published results for the series in the sources reviewed.
Why it works: Selling the owner's improved self, not payroll features, gave a back-office product an emotional promise that a viewer can repeat in one sentence.
6. Deel "The world is your squad"
Deel, a global payroll and HR platform, launched "The world is your squad" with Arsenal in August 2026, according to Marketing-Interactive. The nearly one-minute film follows players including Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Viktor Gyökeres and Martin Ødegaard as a Deel notification calls them to Emirates Stadium from around the world. Arsenal is also a Deel customer and uses its HR platform. A content series featuring the men's and women's squads follows across September and October.
The campaign builds on a partnership that began when Deel became Arsenal's official HR platform partner in December 2025 and added a multi-year sleeve deal in May 2026, effective from the 2026/27 season. In January 2024, Deel's first global video campaign used the "This Is Fine" meme to show how global hiring, payroll and compliance can feel less stressful, according to Deel's blog. Deel has not published results for either campaign in the sources reviewed.
Why it works: The film mirrors what Deel sells, getting people in many countries to act as one team, and Arsenal's own use of the platform gives the sponsorship a customer proof point.
7. ADP National Employment Report
ADP, a payroll and human resources provider, produces the ADP National Employment Report with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. ADP says the report draws on payroll data covering more than half a million companies and more than 26 million employees, using weekly snapshots, according to the report's own site. ADP Research Institute and the Stanford lab announced the current methodology in August 2022.
ADP has not published marketing results for the report. The figures above describe the data behind it, not campaign performance.
Why it works: Payroll records ADP already holds become a new employment number without new fieldwork, and the Stanford partnership gives that number an outside academic co-producer.
What do the best HR tech marketing campaigns have in common?
In this review, five of the seven campaigns dramatize a back-office problem, and two prove value with customer stories or payroll data.
| Approach | Campaigns on this list | What the audience sees |
|---|---|---|
| Dramatize the problem | Papaya Global, Rippling, Workday, "A Future With Gusto", Deel | A joke or story about a back-office problem |
| Prove it with customers | Gusto creator campaign | Real customers describing the product |
| Prove it with data | ADP National Employment Report | A new number from payroll records |
Four of the five dramatized campaigns use sports as the stage. Papaya Global, Rippling and Workday bought Super Bowl airtime, and Deel partnered with an English Premier League club.
That choice carries cost and audience risk. TechCrunch reported a $7 million price for a 30-second slot in 2024, and creatives quoted by Adweek questioned whether Super Bowl viewers include enough software buyers. The two proof-based campaigns, Gusto's creator program and ADP's report, avoid airtime and rely on customers and data the companies already had.
How can HR tech brands copy these campaigns?
HR tech brands can copy these campaigns by choosing one approach, dramatize, customer proof or data, and matching it to the budget they have.
- Show one problem in one scene. Papaya Global's ping-pong balls and Workday's rock stars each dramatize a single problem buyers already recognize.
- Recruit customers who already talk about the product. Gusto found 14 of its 17 creators among existing customers, according to impact.com.
- Publish a number only your company can calculate. ADP builds its report from payroll data covering more than 26 million employees, according to ADP.
- Plan the follow-up before the first ad runs. Rippling opened with a five-ad plan and added in-house spots later.
- Set a baseline before launch. Papaya Global reported website traffic and views, while Rippling and Workday published no results, so a brand copying them should record its own traffic and demo requests before the first ad airs.
Where can you find more campaign roundups?
HR tech sits between software, payments and workplace services, so several 5W lists overlap with this one. See the best SaaS PR campaigns, the best technology PR campaigns and the best fintech marketing campaigns for payments and payroll peers.
For campaign results across every industry, see the top 25 PR campaigns of all time, and for the business-buyer side of marketing, the best B2B marketing campaigns. HR tech brands planning their own program can start with 5W's HR tech and future of work practice.
Frequently asked questions
Which HR tech campaign reported the strongest results?
Gusto's customer-creator campaign reported the largest multiple of its goal among the seven, with 23.6 million impressions against a 3.5 million target, or 6.8 times, according to impact.com. Papaya Global reported 114 million views and tripled website traffic. Both sets of figures are company or vendor reported.
How much does a Super Bowl ad cost for an HR tech company?
A 30-second Super Bowl slot cost $7 million for the 2024 game, according to TechCrunch, the year Papaya Global made its debut. The sources reviewed did not list what Rippling or Workday paid for their spots.
Did Rippling publish results from its Super Bowl ad?
Rippling has not published results for its Super Bowl LX ad in the sources reviewed. Adweek reported that the ad opened a five-ad campaign and that Rippling had about 30,000 customers when it launched.
Can small brands copy this without Super Bowl money?
Small HR tech brands can use the customer-proof and data approaches without Super Bowl airtime. Gusto's creator campaign relied on customers, and its case study says social listening found creators who already talked about the product. ADP's report relies on payroll data the company already holds.
What do HR tech campaigns usually sell?
HR tech campaigns on this list sell relief from a named problem, such as onboarding delays, global payroll tracking or finance approvals, rather than a list of product features.
