Walmart

Challenge:

In February 2010, Walmart retained BBMG to create a global brand identity for “My Sustainability Plan,” a new sustainability program seeking to engage the company’s more than two million associates worldwide.

Process and Approach:

BBMG customized its process to work “fast smart,” assigning a dedicated team of strategists, planners and creatives to meet the challenge in three months.

Following a series of planning sessions and brand immersion training, BBMG made a site visit to Walmart headquarters and surrounding retail stores and distribution centers. In addition to observational research, we conducted interviews with key internal stakeholders (marketing, sustainability, HR, etc.), visited with store managers and associates and led workshops to review peer best practices and employee engagement challenges.

We coordinated with other internal communications programs at Walmart to ensure alignment. And we coordinated our branding work with sustainability consultants, digital consultants and a team from the Haas School (UC-Berkeley) advising on metrics for the project.

Because the new identity and related content must resonate across 15 countries around the world, we participated in global teleconferences with sustainability leaders. We also advised on an international pilot study of our work and supported that process to address stakeholder comments and questions.

Solution:

BBMG created a comprehensive new platform for positioning Walmart’s first truly global associate engagement initiative. We created an icon-driven identity system with a flexible set of creative applications. We developed employee segmentation strategies in conjunction with our approach to the global communications roll-out strategy.

After being unveiled during multiple breakout sessions at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, Walmart announced—as part of its commitment to the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative—its intent to share the intellectual property of the MSP program with any organization requesting a license. BBMG is now acting as a strategic partner on the project, helping adapt core materials and brand assets to create an MSP toolkit that can be shared widely in 2011.