The Basics: Walmart’s annual holiday meeting is a chance for the brand’s U.S. store leadership to preview new merchandise and make plans for the season—but it’s also a place to share best practices, recognize key accomplishments, and create a sense of camaraderie and team bonding.
In 2020, the two-day virtual meeting ran from Sept. 8-9 and drew 7,500 Walmart associates from around the country. Walmart's event solutions team worked with event agency INVNT, who built, designed and managed the virtual experience, which aimed to evoke a Walmart store during the holiday season.
Photo: Courtesy of Walmart
Steal-Worthy Innovations: Organizers made attendee engagement a priority—and that was achieved by accommodating different learning styles and schedules. “How our associates were going to experience the meeting was the basis for all decision-making—it had to be meaningful, informative and engaging for them,” explained Jenifer Bice, Walmart’s senior director of event solutions.
For example, instead of asking associates to stick to a specific hour-by-hour schedule, the virtual environment “gave us the flexibility to have a mix of live sessions at specific times and rotational sessions on-demand, so that attendees could access them in the order and time that made the most sense for each individual person.” The team also utilized a variety of different sets, interview formats and content styles to keep attendees interested for the duration of the meeting.
To further keep employees engaged, the meeting featured an interactive, holiday-themed trivia game. The idea was to reward attendees who could showcase their newfound knowledge of the brand’s 2020 holiday strategy. “Associates could click on a series of wrapped gifts to answer questions about specific business units ... and there were live leaderboards and prizes that recognized the high performers,” said Lauren Kuhnie, director of business development for INVNT.
Photo: Courtesy of Walmart
Lessons Learned: Bice noted that moving to a virtual meeting allowed the team to “push the boundaries of creativity. In an in-person setting where you can touch and feel everything, it has to be real. So to create an environment where attendees had real-life elements—like leadership messages and in-depth videos of merchandise—coupled with a feeling of the virtual world, complemented each other nicely.”
BizBash's 10 Most Innovative Meetings 2021 is sponsored by Bevy, a community event engine fueling virtual, hybrid and in-person events.
