Building Confidence, One Story at a Time

Launching The Hub through storytelling, emotional onboarding, and behavior-led adoption at a Fortune 50 energy company

Brief

Get employees at a Fortune 50 energy company

Who felt overwhelmed by yet another platform rollout

To trust and explore The Hub digital workplace

By designing a narrative-led onboarding campaign that treated adoption as discovery, not compliance

Role: Creative Strategy, Copywriting, Narrative Sequencing, Behavioral Onboarding

Client: Fortune 50 Energy Company

Challenge: Drive meaningful adoption during December pilot across 45 participants in two locations

Insight

The company was rolling out a new digital workplace portal intended to streamline communication, navigation, personalization, and cross-functional collaboration. Employees were accustomed to legacy tools and required confidence, clarity, and meaningful onboarding to drive early adoption.

Training decks don't build habits. Feature lists don't inspire exploration. And nobody reads a 40-page user guide when they're already overwhelmed by their inbox.

Employees rarely adopt a new workplace tool because of technical instructions alone. They need emotional reassurance, confidence, and simplicity.

Truth: The business had a product. What they needed was a campaign.

The Creative Platform

Adoption as Shared Discovery

I designed a narrative-led onboarding journey that treated learning as a collective experience, not a compliance exercise.

The approach centered on three weekly themes:

- Week 1: Personalization (Make it yours)

- Week 2: Collaboration (Find your people)

- Week 3: Productivity (Work smarter)

Each week included assigned behaviors, short-form film scripts, A/B tonal testing, multi-channel distribution, and social nudges.

This wasn't about teaching people how to click buttons. It was about helping them trust themselves enough to try something new.

Three-week behavior sequencing treating adoption as discovery, not compliance—film, social nudges, tone experiments.

Approach

I led creative strategy and narrative sequencing for The Hub pilot, designing every touchpoint to build confidence through story.

The Work:

- Six scripted 15-second teaser films with scene-by-scene direction

- A/B tonal testing: straight informational vs. "Dear John" emotional framing

- Weekly behavior assignments (personalize portal, use People Finder, explore recent documents)

- Internal platform posts reinforcing each week's learning

- Multi-channel distribution through internal social platforms and Microsoft Teams

- Qualitative feedback loop encouraging reflection and confidence-building

The campaign orchestrated momentum through cadence, curiosity, and shared experimentation—not force.

A/B tonal testing revealed employees wanted permission to feel overwhelmed—not just instructions on what to click next.

Voice in Action

The campaign lived across internal channels—short films, social posts, Teams messages, and weekly prompts that made exploration feel intuitive, not intimidating.

Weekly behavior assignments delivered through Microsoft Teams—framing exploration as invitation, not instruction.
Emotional "Dear John" tone in practice—acknowledging vulnerability and giving employees permission to need help.
Scene-by-scene direction for 15-second teaser films—balancing clarity with warmth, instruction with permission.
Cadence-driven pilot structure with teaser films, social posts, assignments, and feedback loops across three themes.

Why it Worked

  • Treated internal adoption as a creative challenge, not a compliance exercise

  • Used storytelling and emotional framing to build confidence, not just communicate features

  • Designed behavior sequencing that made exploration feel safe and shared

  • A/B tested tone to understand what resonates with employees navigating change

  • Proved that short-form film and narrative campaigns work inside enterprise contexts