To bring this idea to life, we created ‘Say Thanks’—a tool that gave people the ability to send a customized film to any of their friends as a way to say “thanks” and celebrate their friendship.

Built using 300 adjustable templates in nine languages, ‘Say Thanks’ used the photos and posts shared between any two friends to generate endless unique films.

The tool was truly interface agnostic. People could create, customize, send and receive a film using nearly any smartphone, tablet or computer; as long as they could access Facebook.

All the gratitude friends wanted to share made ‘Say Thanks’ an instant success.

*Over 200 million films were created and sent, generating over 500 million “Likes.”

*At peak, over 3 million films were created per hour. That’s 55 thousand per minute, with the ability to send up to four thousand per second.

*‘Say Thanks’ drove a 12x increase in video uploads during the month of November.

Looking beyond the numbers, the best indicator of success was that one third of all people who received a film were so moved that they sent a film of their own.

Through a previous effort around Facebook's anniversary we learned that people loved the ability to stop and reflect on their own relationships over time- something Facebook could uniquely offer. We knew the end of the year was a time many people stop to connect, share gratitude and reflect on the meaningful relationships in their lives.

We wanted to give the entire Facebook community a gift they could share with their friends and family, regardless of where they live, something that helped them say “thanks.” This experience not only gave the community something they wanted, but it helped reinforce Facebook's belief that human connection is powerful, meaningful and important.