Embedding a culture of innovation through a reward scheme

Overview

Faced with low engagement in its Chairman’s Awards, Nissan partnered with us to reimagine the programme – driving excitement, engagement, creativity and inclusivity.

Find out how we used our expertise in Communications to bring in a 900% uplift in entries and deliver unforgettable experiences for the finalists and winners.

The challenge

Nissan’s Chairman’s Awards were struggling to inspire employees, with fewer than 2% taking part. The largely non-office-based workforce found the scheme and process inaccessible, low-tech and lacking transparency.

The awards needed a complete refresh to build credibility, engage a diverse and multilingual workforce, and spark genuine excitement.

Nissan wanted to engage its employees from across Europe with their global mission of innovation, and to encourage employees to contribute new ideas.

The solution

Over two years, we helped Nissan launch and evolve the Chairman’s Innovation Awards -renewing excitement and engagement across Europe and making innovation accessible to everyone.

We designed a multi-channel campaign – You are the innovators – designed to:

• CELEBRATE Innovation – recognize and reward a culture of everyday innovation. Employees could nominate up to 5 colleagues who innovate in their job
• UNLOCK Innovation – Crowdsourcing innovative ideas that Nissan could ‘unlock’ with employees, positively impacting Nissan’s customers

How we did it

Year 1:

• All-new creative identity – Based on innovation and inspired by the winners’ experience trip to NASA.
• A new digital home – We purpose-built a multi-lingual mobile-friendly microsite, accessible to all employees, a one-stop-shop for uploading submissions, nominating peers and checking the judging criteria.
• Comms for everyone, everywhere – The microsite was activated by a multi-channel, inclusive communications campaign, which reached all employees in offices, factories and cafeterias. We deigned a ‘production pack’ of ambient materials for local communications teams – posters, pull up banners, coasters, paper cups, watercooler graphics, lift graphics, emails templates, screensavers and notebooks.
• Live experiences – We gave the twenty finalists a five-start experience at Nissan’s Brand Centre in Barcelona, where they pitched live and employees then voted for their favourites. For the two winners, we organised an unforgettable 5-day trip to NASA, including a private tour of the Space Center with an astronaut and a visit to the world-famous Art Car Museum. Our Unlock winner also took a year off their regular job to develop and realise their idea, with funding.

Year 2:

For year 2, we evolved the mechanics, categories, identity, communications and live experiences of the programme. We updated the creative to reflect the winners experience in Japan, featuring cherry blossom trees and paper cranes, celebrating Nissan’s heritage. The finalist experience was a trip to Innovation Live in Paris and the Winners Experience was a trip to Nissan’s Technical Center in Japan.

The value created

Across both years, the results were exceptional:

Year 1:

• Entries surged from 200 to over 2,100 – a 900% increase
• More than 1,500 peer nominations and 500+ new ideas submitted
• 1,000 employee votes cast for their favourite finalist within the first 24 hours
• KPIs exceeded by 50%, with strong engagement across Europe

Year 2:

• Over 2,000 new ideas submitted – double the target KPI
• Continued high participation and positive feedback from employees and leadership

The Chairman’s Innovation Awards became a recognised catalyst for creativity across Nissan Europe embedding innovation into everyday culture and empowering employees to drive the brand’s future.

Our client said: