VOK DAMS China, Beijing, China

Name of Organization / Company: VOK DAMS China, Beijing, China

Category: Award for Innovation in Internal (Corporate) Events

Entry Title: MBFS China Excellence Awards 2016

Entry:

The MBFS China Excellence Awards is an annual event that recognizes outstanding employees/leaders/teams for their performance at MBFS China. The event also encourages all members of MBFS China to strive for even greater achievements in 2016. In 2016, six individual finalists and three team finalists were featured in the event and celebrated for their excellence in 2015.

But when we first discussed the project with MBFS China CEO Alex Mallmann, he had had a broader business challenge on his mind. 2015 had been a banner year for MBFS China, culminating in record contracts and the company’s third consecutive year awarded as a Great Place to Work. However, rapid business growth also resulted in a major challenge for the company in the coming year. Per Mr. Mallmann, “We’re like a plane that’s being built while it’s in the air. If we’re not all on the same page, the size of our organization will become an obstacle to our success rather than an asset for us relative to competitors.”

Our first insight was that the company had spent a good deal of 2015 focusing on defining its high performance culture, even including investing in workshops at the management and staff levels to make high performance a core brand value accessible by every MBFS China employee. Therefore, the Excellence Awards event in 2016 was an opportunity to provide forward-looking impetus for the awards finalists and employees on the whole to experience MBFS China-style collaboration (the cause of high performance) and excellence (the effect of high performance) in ways that only live events can deliver.

In previous years, the MBFS China Excellence Awards featured the finalists themselves as the stars of the evening. This is a core element of the event that we wanted to preserve.

However, we did see an opportunity to transform the experience from one where guests “did all the work” into one that was designed to immerse guests in relevant, impactful and fun brand interaction. This subtle change in approach enabled us to significantly increase the brand credibility of the event while making a genuine connection with every MBFS employee in attendance. This strategy aimed to continue enabling the MBFS China Excellence Awards narrative to be written by the hand of those who experienced it, while taking the event to another level in both brand impact and guest affinity. We also found this approach to have an indirect benefit: employees being further motivated employees to strive for excellence in 2016 and thus be rewarded at next year’s event in a similar way to this year’s finalists.

The results:

- 600+ guests who became 600+ instant lucky draw winners through a mobile app on WeChat
- 400+ green screen guest photos illustrating MBFS China "Excellence" and "Collaboration" with mobile device social media digital integration
- 51 award finalists
- 30+ days pre-event promotion at MBFS China headquarters in Beijing
- 21 MBFS China Excellence Awards trophies
- 12 event films
- 3 award categories: Best Employee, Best Leader, Best Team
- 2 electric scooters
- 1 live Face Time introduction of MBFS China CEO on a 15m * 3m LED screen in the ballroom

And, according to the event owner from the client side, "Magic."