On September 11, 2001, the world changed forever. In the aftermath, New York was left devastated and disconnected. With phone lines down, cell service disrupted and Wall Street catastrophically offline, it was chaos and confusion. Verizon’s 140 West Street building—the central telecommunications hub for Lower Manhattan—was badly damaged at Ground Zero. Its restoration became crucial for the comeback of the city as well as the nation. The next day, over 14,000 Verizon employees mobilized, risking their lives to reconnect New York. These stories never made headlines, and were even unknown to many who work at Verizon. So on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we honored those brave men and women from 2001 with an experience created for Verizon employees by sharing an important and meaningful piece of our company’s history.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Verizon created “9/12: The Untold Story of Reconnecting New York.” This one-day, real-time immersive MMS experience used AR, VR, audio, and interactive media to tell the stories of the Verizon employees who were at the badly damaged corporate headquarters that connected Lower Manhattan and Wall Street, and their part in the restoration efforts that were crucial for the comeback of the city and the nation.

It’s a story that’s never been told, in a format that’s never been used before: text messages. In 2001, it was the latest way to communicate and in 2021, the most personal. The 1:1 nature of texting gave a meaningful platform to share the emotional employee stories that emerged in the days after 9/11. With every text documenting a moment, action or story delivered at the time the events actually happened 20 years earlier.

Celebrating the contribution of employees creates a culture where people feel more invested, valued and engaged. Unknown to many at Verizon was the critical role our employees played during 9/11. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we created 9/12. The untold story of reconnecting New York, to honor the brave men and women from Verizon who were there in 2001. The experience was for current employees to learn about an important piece of our company’s history.

To participate, users could sign up via the website or use a textable link. Our corporate comms team promoted the experience through internal social, email, and executive communication..

On 9/12, new texts went out to users every hour, at the time of day the events actually happened twenty years ago, putting people in the shoes of the employees who were there.

We invited users to step into the timeline of 9/12/2001 through a one-day, real-time immersive experience that put them in the shoes of Verizon employees who sprang into action to reconnect New York after the terrorist attacks. Eleven personal stories were told through MMS native content including phone calls reenacting historical moments, 360º interactive maps of Lower Manhattan, and AR “before-and-after” filters. It’s a nod to the basic tech of 2001 while featuring the cutting-edge mobile experiences of today—a story about the past told with a modern twist.

Because text messaging as an integrated media experience had never been done before, we had to solve how we could simultaneously send out a mass amount of high-volume content. 500K texts were sent over a 12-hour time period. All carefully orchestrated to accurately deliver the story in the correct sequence of events. For the first time ever, we used Twilio-driven SMS technology to create an interactive narrative, making careful tweaks throughout production to ensure content was delivered at the right time and in the right order to remain historically accurate. Interactive maps with dynamic lighting correspond to the time of day on 9/12/2001, and the user interface was referential of design from 2001, further bringing the past to life. AR and WebGL were also used to create the 3D scenes and buildings for users to explore and visualize the extent of the structural damage to Verizon headquarters.

Our success came from creating a nontraditional multimedia MMS platform. Existing phone apps became the springboard for immersive storytelling. Leveraging every native tool within a text conversation, we sent viewers a series of personal, poignant employee stories at the times they actually happened on September 12, 2001.

Over 300,000 MMSes were sent out on the launch day alone. Mobile messaging became a unique and powerful storytelling tool that connected to users on an intimate and personal level.

Our success stemmed from creating a meaningful brand experience for our employees, resulting in a 99.86% engagement rate. As a brand that puts innovation at the forefront of everything we do, we took extreme pride in the creation of an entirely new multimedia MMS platform. Existing phone apps became the springboard for immersive storytelling. Leveraging every native tool within a text conversation, viewers received a series of personal, poignant employee stories at the times the events actually happened in 2001. 9/12 pays tribute to the incredible resilience, courage, and willpower of the 14,000 Verizon employees who showed up and made a profound impact on our nation’s recovery in the aftermath of 9/11.