Why Employee Engagement Drives External Success
This viewpoint is shaped by insights taken from shortlisted entries in the 2025 B2B Marketing Awards. Evaluated by over 100 independent, client-side judges through a rigorous two-stage process, the analysis gives a clear view of how leading organizations are evolving and where others can improve. This blog touches on employee engagement and how it can lead to high-impact marketing.
Internal audiences are no longer just an internal comms consideration—they are a strategic growth lever. Analysis of the Awards shortlist shows a clear pattern: organizations that invest in employee engagement, alignment and advocacy are better positioned to deliver consistent, credible and high-impact external marketing.
As businesses navigate transformation, new technologies and increasing market pressure, employees are the connective tissue between brand and customer. When teams understand the brand, believe in it and actively champion it, that alignment translates into stronger customer experiences, clearer messaging and improved commercial performance.
“Flight nBS2025: An Immersive Brand Journey” by npower Business Solutions, with The Marketing Pod:
Bronze: Best Digital Experience, Gold: Best Employee-Engagement Campaign
This brand journey campaign by npower Business Solutions (nBS) aimed to transform internal brand understanding for its employees. Moving beyond passive comms, the team created an unforgettable, airport-themed VR experience, making the brand personal and interactive.
The campaign achieved unprecedented engagement and brand buy-in. In initial sessions, 78% of employees rated their connection to the (nBS) brand an 8 or higher post-experience, with 47% giving it top marks. Qualitatively, it sparked organic internal momentum, with teams integrating brand attributes daily.
The campaign was innovative in its use of VR and gamification, achieving internal brand embedding at scale. This campaign led to over 200 employees engaging with the full VR experience during the initial launch period, and sessions continue to run to reach over 1,100 professionals.
“Expleo AI Superstar” for Expleo, by Spaag
Shortlisted: Best employee-engagement campaign
Faced with the challenge of boosting employee engagement and brand advocacy, Expleo – a global engineering, technology and consulting services provider – sought to strengthen the sense of belonging among its 19,000 employees worldwide, many working at client sites, making it difficult to foster a shared company identity.
To meet this challenge, Spaag designed a unique activation – “Expleo Superstars” – leveraging the 2024 Summer of Sport. This initiative relied on the development of a proprietary AI tool that allowed employees to generate personalized graphics and videos – in a professional and sporting setting – using a photo of themselves, embodying Expleo’s motto: “Everything you are, anything you want to be.” The experience was designed to be smooth and intuitive, encouraging high internal adoption. An internal communication strategy multi-channel sharing strategy (LinkedIn, Meta) were implemented, boosted by the hashtag #ExpleoSuperstars. During the program’s lifespan, Expleo Superstars had over 4,000 users generating on average four superstars each, showing high engagement. Approximately 10% of shared ‘Superstars’ using the campaign hashtag, demonstrating its ability to generate massive employee engagement. In fact, over 47% of shares were from Expleons who had not previously shared company content in the previous three months. Shares from Expleons generated 18,000 reactions on LinkedIn, averaging 48 per post.
