GoPro Corporate Communications

Date:

Quarterly

Location:

San Mateo, California; Paris France; Bucharest, Hungary

Client:

GoPro

Corporate communications is always in focus at GoPro

GoPro was founded in 2002 by Nick Woodman, a surfer who wanted a tough, waterproof camera he could strap to his wrist and survive wipeouts. Starting with a 35 mm film camera in 2004, the company went digital in 2006 and exploded with the HERO line—small, rugged, wide-angle cameras that made first-person action footage accessible to everyone.

By 2012–2014 GoPro owned the action-camera category. It went public in 2014, hit a peak valuation of nearly $13 billion, and powered the early YouTube and extreme-sports video boom. In 2015, competition started picking up and shortly thereafter Go Pro began to diversity, getting into the drone business. As business challenges mounted, it was more important than ever for Go Pro to ensure that all of the company’s employees were seeing the big picture so they could work through these tough times together.

THE CHALLENGE

GoPro needed a partner capable of executing mission-critical company-wide communication broadcasts with absolute reliability. For these quarterly all-hands events, the minimum requirement was “flawless execution” - deliver seamless, polished in-room AV as well as a worldwide live stream for product demonstrations as well as updates from the company’s various operating divisions.

The first event set the bar. GoPro was preparing to unveil its new drone platform, an early-generation prototype with limited and inconsistent video-output compatibility. Leadership wanted to:

- Show the drone physically on stage.

- Launch the drone outside over the campus immediately after the reveal.

- Capture the drone’s onboard camera feed live.

- Capture a separate broadcast-quality camera feed filming the drone in flight.

- Display both feeds side-by-side, in perfect sync, as part of the main program broadcast.

At the time, this workflow simply did not exist in any off-the-shelf form. Previous AV teams had attempted the job and failed. GoPro’s engineers were unsure how to make the feeds compatible or how to transmit the drone’s encoded video into a professional switcher environment. GlobeStream Media was given one directive: find a way to make it work.

WHY GLOBESTREAM MEDIA?

The GoPro leadership team selected GlobeStream Media for our technical depth, adaptability, and track record managing complex, custom workflows under pressure. We were the only provider proposing a viable path to harmonize prototype hardware, consumer-grade encoding, professional broadcast equipment, and a global distribution pipeline—all in real time. Our reputation for calm, disciplined execution in high-stakes environments gave GoPro confidence that we could achieve what others could not.

THE SOLUTION

GlobeStream Media partnered directly with GoPro’s engineering team to reverse-engineer a workable signal path for a device that pre-dated formal broadcast integration standards. Our approach included: - Collaborating with GoPro engineers to identify compatible codec settings for the drone’s video output. - Designing a custom ingest chain using additional converters to capture the drone’s signal into GoPro’s Windows-based laptops. - Transcoding the feed to a stable H.264 profile suitable for professional switcher environments. - Integrating the transcoded signal into our Blackmagic ATEM production switcher. - Synchronizing and compositing the drone feed and the secondary camera feed into a clean side-by-side presentation for live broadcast. - Stress-testing the workflow repeatedly to eliminate drift, latency, and signal breakage. - Standing up a full AV environment capable of distributing a polished, real-time global stream to more than 1,500 worldwide employees and stakeholders. The result was a stable, repeatable, fully engineered solution for a prototype product that was never designed for broadcast integration.

THE RESULTS

The broadcast was executed flawlessly—exactly as GoPro demanded. The dual-feed drone demonstration landed to company-wide applause and became a highlight of the event. GoPro leadership credited the success of the presentation with restoring confidence internally after failed attempts with prior vendors.

Following the inaugural event, GlobeStream Media became GoPro’s trusted partner for their quarterly all-hands meetings for the next six years. We delivered consistent, reliable AV and streaming support for every event during that period, enabling GoPro to communicate product innovations, strategic updates, and major corporate milestones to a global workforce with zero broadcast failures.

Need a reliable partner for your next corporate communications event? Contact GlobeStream Media today!