The Arthur Webb Challenge Cup

Overview

Arthur Webb was an inspiring figure who led the Nationwide Building Society during two World Wars, arguably playing the most significant role in its history.

The Arthur Webb Challenge Cup, pays tribute to Arthur and his inspirational behaviour, encouraging the Society’s staff to deliver employee-driven projects that promotes innovation, collaboration and empowerment.

Since its launch in 2017, over 300 teams and 1800 individuals within the organisation have collaborated to deliver projects as part of the Challenge Cup. The first year of the challenge focused on making efficiencies across the Society, and was a huge success, with colleagues collaborating to deliver a forecasted £2million of efficiency savings. A survey found that because of the Challenge Cup, more employees viewed efficiency savings as a priority.

The aim for the 2020 semi-final event was to provide the 23 semi-final teams the opportunity to pitch their work to a selection of Nationwide’s leaders, to create an engaging digital event showcasing the semi-finalists and their projects, while encouraging colleagues not involved in the challenge to watch and participate, inspiring them to enter future challenges.

It was also important to recognise and celebrate the work of all 2019/20 Challenge Cup teams and thank them for their valued contribution.
Due to the restrictions arising from the coronavirus pandemic, the annual event was transformed into a virtual experience for 2020.

Solution

While Nationwide were encouraging all 18,000 employees to access the online event, registration was not required, but security was paramount due to the sensitive information.

In response to this, we created a secure website for the virtual event, accessible only by Nationwide employees. The site enabled us to feature the whole campaign identity throughout. It provided introductions to the semi-finalists, an agenda page, the hosting of the live stream and allowed employees to vote for their favourite team, while featuring highlights of all teams who took part across 2020.

Our in-house design team crafted attention grabbing and powerful visual content to keep engagement and interest high throughout by creating digital Microsoft Teams backdrops with an opening sting showing ideas submitted by all 23 semi-finalist teams. These were played out as they walked up to the virtual stage; while a ‘legends wall’ displayed as a digital backdrop, showcased all teams that took part in the 2019/20 Challenge Cup.

The Arthur Webb Challenge Cup 2019/20 was hosted within our onsite Virtual Studio, complete with a 10m wide LED wall, set and staging. It also featured bespoke furniture, plinths, props and branded backdrops.

Two of the judges were present within the virtual studio, while one was brought into the event remotely from home and we provided a virtual communication solution which allowed all team members to come together to pitch, even though they were not physically together. Teams were allowed a maximum of ten people and were not only able to showcase their ideas to judges, but could also see their pitch, videos and speak to the judges in the studio and remote judge, having two-way conversations in real-time.