The Home Depot, 20 years: a virtual anniversary event for the whole workforce

The goal was to make the company's 20th anniversary memorable and to get every employee involved. Together, the two conditions are demanding: a milestone anniversary calls for emotion and a degree of ceremony, and involving the whole workforce calls for an open, accessible format capable of reaching everyone.

At a virtual event, the challenge is even greater. A screen competes with email, phones and the pending to-do list, and holding attention for a whole day is very difficult if the format is limited to live speeches. You have to get people to log on, to stay and to feel they're part of the celebration rather than watching it from the outside. And teams with very different roles have to find their place within the same event.

The proposal was a virtual event in which surprises followed one another throughout the day, with special guests and games that depended on the department. Instead of a single ceremony, a programme that invited people to log back on throughout the day.

The project included script development, building the event programme, recording content, liaising with special guests, live streaming, a landing page for the broadcast and event communications. It fits because it delivers both goals at once: the surprises and guests bring the memorable factor, and the games by department give every team its own reason to take part. The landing page and the advance communications, for their part, make the invitation simple and visible to the whole workforce.