In early 2021, we helped launch the new Walmart World site, a digital platform designed to connect the global associate community — anytime, anywhere. A feat that became even more important as we were all continuing to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. It was crucial for us to increase our Walmart World following and engagement to help bring associates together during this time.
Fast forward a few months to Walmart’s Associates Week, a time-honored tradition filled with fun, games, and above all, Walmart pride. But again, 2021 was a little different. We needed to figure out how to recreate the same awesome feeling of Associates Week, previously an in-person, week-long hype fest, within a virtual world. It had to be something exciting, engaging — and above all, we needed to create a strong sense of community for all associates. Here was our opportunity to grow, be creative and have some fun.
With all of this in mind, an idea emerged. An idea so epic, we had to put “epic” in the title.
What if we created an epic emoji scavenger hunt 🔍 that not only gave associates a fun and engaging Associates Week experience, but also opened their eyes to the new digital platform and all of the social channels Walmart World has to offer?
The Epic Emoji Hunt had to engage millions of people of all levels. So, it had to be filled with clues that contained that perfect mix of simplicity and challenge. With those thoughtful considerations in mind, a couple clever rhymes, and a bunch of emojis, our event finally went live.
Over the course of the week, associates would put their scavenging skills to the test, racing each other (and of course, helping each other) to follow clues across all of Walmart World's channels to find secret emojis that we carefully hid within social bios, tweets, Walmart World blog articles, profile images, and even Tik-Tok videos featuring the beloved Walmart World Radio DJs.
But we knew we had to entice engagement with something more than just bragging rights, so we also created a set of limited edition Walmart World enamel pins (a highly sought after prize for any Walmart associate). Walmart pins not only help showcase the authentic personalities of Walmart associates and highlight milestones, they are tiny tokens embodying Walmart pride — again, what Associates Week is all about. These custom pins were awarded to the first group of associates that successfully completed the hunt.
When we couldn’t be physically together, we recreated a favorite IRL activity in the digital world, and with it, a sense of community and connectivity we’d all been missing. And, we also managed to get a lot of people to engage with the content.
1,458 associates from over 900 stores, distribution centers, fulfillment centers and the Home Office participated in the Epic Emoji Hunt, and 57 percent of those associates successfully completed the scavenger hunt!
Overall, the scavenger hunt generated nearly 300,000 impressions across activated channels, and the WalmartWorld.com kickoff article generated nearly 20,000 page views alone — the second most popular article on the site, behind the site’s launch earlier that year.
We also saw an overall 2.9% increase in followers (that’s 114,000 new followers!) across our social channels.
