Strategic campaigns case study · Thumbtack · 2025
Launching Thumbtack's New Mission
A year-long internal campaign to introduce, activate, and sustain Thumbtack's new mission across a 1,300-person company. From a single Employee Kickoff announcement through 12 months of programming, manager enablement, and pro and customer storytelling.
- Company
- Thumbtack
- Scope
- 1,300 employees
- My role
- Strategy and execution
The situation
Thumbtack forged a new mission: Help homeowners and home professionals accomplish more. The yearly Employee Kickoff established the language, but we spent a year ensuring employees were tied to that mission. Most launches share a big reveal with some follow-up and the messages fade over time. The goal here was to keep the mission operationally visible across the full year and beyond.
My role
I owned the communications strategy and execution, including the launch campaign, the year-long programming calendar, the manager enablement cadence, and the pro and customer storytelling series. I also collaborated with an external creative partner on the intranet takeover and asset development for launch week.
The strategic decision
The core decision was to treat the mission as more than a launch moment. We built it as a 12-month editorial platform, with a content cadence in place before launch week wrapped: monthly pro and customer videos, a recurring employee series featuring people across tenure and function, and quarterly talking points managers could use with their teams. The previous mission felt too far removed from the work people were doing every day. This one needed to feel real, useful, and connected to the business. Every communication tied the mission back to the work employees actually do, so it could move from words on a page to something people could champion.
The channel plan
- Teaser phase: Teaser campaign in newsletter and company Slack channels, including a branded Wordle as a mission clue on the final pre-launch day.
- Launch day: Employee Kickoff. Intranet takeover with Mission Control as the single source of truth. CEO mission essay published live.
- Day after launch: Intranet badge awarded to all Employee Kickoff attendees.
- First week follow-up: Newsletter mission follow-up. Manager Hub launch with activation guide, discussion prompts, and year-ahead preview. First manager newsletter published.
- Ongoing: Monthly pro and customer video series at all-hands. Recurring employee series. Quarterly manager cascade. Mission tie-ins to spring campaign, company events, and AI initiatives.
What I built
We built an intranet landing page called Mission Control as the primary source of truth for the new mission. It included our CEO's essay, the Employee Kickoff replay, pro and customer pages, and Zoom backgrounds. The Manager Hub activation guide gave managers structured tools to bring the mission into team meetings immediately after launch. The monthly video series created a sustained connection between the mission and the people it was built around, Thumbtack's pros and customers. The employee series paired people across tenure and function to keep the mission feeling human and grounded throughout the year, no matter your role.
What I'd do differently
This campaign is continuously running. We are still finding ways to engage with the mission throughout our communications.
The broader lesson
A company's mission is not just words on a page. It's a feeling that connects employees to the work they do every day. Keeping it relevant requires showing up continuously and living that mission.
A company's mission is not just words on a page. It's a feeling that connects employees to the work they do every day.