The Challenge
After 20 years with the same values, Merlin Entertainments needed something exceptional for their new values launch. We were rolling them out to 30,000 employees. Across 140 global attractions. In just 63 days. (Deep breaths, people.)
But the real challenge? We needed employees to feel ownership of values they were seeing for the first time.
The Approach
Instead of telling employees about their values, we decided to let them tell us.
When 337 of Merlin’s leaders gathered in Gardaland, Italy, for what they thought was a regular conference, little did they know, they were about to become the stars of their own values launch.
Inspired by Derren Brown’s subliminal messaging technique, our team secretly planted the values throughout the venue. They were stuck on bus notices, coffee machines, and door hangers — hidden in plain sight. While leaders were in workshops, we listened to their conversations, wrote their words on giant Post-its, and placed them around the venue. We photographed them with whiteboards featuring their own quotes that perfectly embodied the new values.
For the grand finale, we showed a film that captured all these moments: their quotes, photos, and footage of them naturally embodying the values. The revelation? They’d been living them all along.
The Results
- 96% rated it the “best leadership event” they’d ever attended
- +87 NPS for the event
- 1,200+ downloads of the first learning module
“We have never seen anything revealed with such excitement, embraced, adopted, rolled-out globally, and felt so deeply. It’s set the bar on how we drive culture change around here.”
Erica Page
Global People Director, Merlin
“World-class execution.”
Scott O’Neil
CEO, Merlin
