The challenge:

A huge challenge for brands who invest in partnerships with major sports events and teams is to take their staff on the journey with them.  It’s not just about the above-the-line advertising campaigns and messaging alignment, but also giving their own masses an opportunity to feel part of it all.

For Centrica and British Gas, in an Olympic and Paralympic summer, the challenge was two-fold; to engage colleagues around Paris 2024 and also to promote wellbeing internally via better health and fitness.

The solution:

The answer was to connect the two and use GoJoe to leverage the sponsorship and drive internal engagement around wellbeing.

Enter ‘The Road to Paris’; a company-wide virtual team challenge designed to motivate Centrica and British Gas colleagues to move more in the lead up to the Olympics, get fitter and healthier and to feel more directly connected to the company’s sponsorship of Team GB and ParalympicsGB.

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A number of key tactics were adopted to achieve this:

1. Star power: 5-time Paralympic champion Ellie Simmonds fronted the challenge from image headers and promotional content to leading her own team and taking part herself
2. Perfect timing: The challenge ran for six weeks, ending just before the Olympic Opening Ceremony, enabling the Road to Paris to maximise the impact of the Games build up and excitement
3. Comps and stash: Everyone loves a freebie! GoJoe and Centrica worked together to create numerous opportunities to award staff prizes based around the challenge. These ranged from the GoJoe Awards to in-app photo challenges and even a songwriting competition. And from signed merch and recognition points to tickets to the Olympics, the ability to dangle the carrot of amazing prizes not only helped connect the challenge to the sponsorship but drove awareness and sign ups to Paris 2024
4. Taking the digital, physical: GoJoe staffed a dozen Centrica and British Gas roadshows, hosting plank and grip strength competitions and, of course, promoting the Road to Paris. Sometimes nothing beats the traditional face-to-face approach
5. Gold medal worthy execution: Shiny Olympic and Paralympic logos are brilliant but, without the delivery of an outstanding user experience via the Road to Paris challenge, no amount of Ellie Simmonds enthusiasm (and she has loads!) was going to cut it.

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The results:

The results spoke for themselves. In the six weeks of the Road to Paris, 1,745 Centrica and British Gas colleagues formed 266 teams and delivered:

• 91% engagement across all GoJoe sign ups
• 60,368 activities logged (average 38 per person)
• 199,486km travelled (almost five times around the world)
• 49,145 hours of activity (31 hours per person)
  
  • Averaging 44 minutes of activity per person per day

And it’s not just the super keen and active who got stuck in. At GoJoe, we pride ourselves in getting the inactive active:

• Employees who previously exercised not at all or just 1-2 times per month increased their activity to, on average, 15 times per month or more during the Road to Paris

And engagement from across the organisation showed how GoJoe can bring teams closer together and create stronger cultures around health and fitness:

• 32% of teams were made up of people from different business areas
• 54% of teams consisted of 6 or more members

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The effort from the Centrica and British Gas teams was amazing and the impact of this demonstrated the huge value of genuine motivation to move more. On average:

• 68% saw a boost to their physical wellbeing
• 64% recorded an increase in their mental wellbeing
• 64% noticed a rise in their social wellbeing

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The engagement translated onto the app and user experience too

• App usage was 201% higher than GoJoe’s benchmark
• Over 2.1m app engagements during the Road to Paris
• Average session length was 33% higher than GoJoe’s benchmark
• Hundreds of comments from users on the chat group ranging from sharing their own activity to encouraging others. It became a haven of support and positivity. We loved seeing it.

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And don’t just take our word for it:

Just a few choice quotes from some of the Centrica team who took part in the challenge:

"What an amazing Challenge and I'm so proud of everyone for all the hard work we've put in. I'm doing three new activities this week alone."

"I'm fitter now than I have been in years and can vouch for exercise being a great way to support your mental wellbeing."

"It's making me more mindful of the exercise that I do and how long I do it for, or how far I go. I love the accessibility aspect too."

"Absolutely loving the GoJoe app and Challenge. The app has really helped me kick start my exercise again."

"The challenge also sparkled positive chats in the workplace about sports, fitness levels, forming teams on GoJoe etc. It's nice to see colleagues collaborate on this regardless of fitness levels, location etc. It feels like it brings us together a bit more."

"I really enjoyed the activity which motivated me to move more. For someone that would describe themself as 'active,' I was surprised to learn that I had only closed my daily 'move' ring (550kcals) on average, 5 times per month."

"Thanks to GoJoe, this increased to 18 times in June and I'm on track to increase this further in July!"

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