Turning employees into Net Zero Heroes

Following a number of successful campaigns for its Minster brand, Saint-Gobain approached us for assistance with an important internal communications campaign for its Contracts Division, which consists of Minster and Jewson Civils Frazer.

The aim was to find a fun and engaging way to educate and train its colleagues on the Contracts Division’s Sustainability Roadmap to reach Net Zero by 2050 and the steps that can be taken both personally and professionally. The intention was to help colleagues speak confidently and competently about this topic to customers.

Working with a specialist provider, 3radical, Saint-Gobain planned to create a dedicated ‘gamified’ microsite to both help deliver the required information to colleagues and provide an interesting way for them to consume it.

The microsite centred around an online board game where dice rolls could be earned by reading bite-sized pieces of content within the four key areas of: resources, energy management, fuel usage and product information. The more content someone consumed, the more dice rolls they received. By playing the game, colleagues could win a range of prizes including a holiday for four and National Trust vouchers as well as smaller sustainability-related prizes such as branded reusable coffee cups made from recycled materials and ethically sourced chocolate. To keep staff engaged over the long term, the content was launched in four phases.

We were tasked with devising the overarching creative for the campaign to include promotional posters for the back offices of its 53 branches, email headers, the design of the board game itself as well as a large number of other icons and assets for the gamified site, ensuring the creative theme ran across all aspects of the campaign.

The campaign line we devised was ‘Sustainability Heroes aren’t born, they’re made’ – a twist on the familiar statement. The rationale being that super heroes transform just as the road to Net Zero 2050 is a transformative process for the Saint-Gobain business, hence our visual execution featuring a selection of children in super hero costumes – the ultimate aim being to turn the 670 employees in the Contracts Division into Net Zero Heroes.

We also researched, recommended and procured a number of the prizes to be won.

The campaign was very well received by the Contracts Division’s staff and the results were excellent:

• In the first two months of the campaign 450 of the 670 employees signed up (67%)
• 90% of visitors to the microsite viewed all available content.
• More than 600 prizes won in the first month, showing the level of engagement among staff.
• 150 colleagues returned on the first day of the 2nd phase launch.