Culture and engagement case study · Thumbtack · 2025
Thumbtack's Annual Values Awards
Seven months of communications strategy and production for Thumbtack's highest-visibility employee moment of the year. A newsroom-themed virtual show celebrating eight company values, 480 nominations, and 697 attendees.
- Company
- Thumbtack
- Attendance
- 697 employees
- My role
- Comms strategy, scripting, and production
The situation
Thumbtack's Values Awards celebrates eight company values and recognizes employees for their contributions. I owned the communications strategy and show production from the first planning meeting through the live virtual broadcast. The work spanned seven months: a multi-week nominations campaign, a selection committee process, pre-show communications, and a fully scripted live show.
My role
I developed the newsroom theme with a small team, then owned the communications and scripting built around it. The show included a comedic pre-show opening and tongue-in-cheek commercials between awards. I also produced the show, coordinating leadership and past winner recordings, interstitial segments, and the production timeline. Winner names weren't confirmed until the day before filming.
The campaign arc
- Planning phase: Leadership alignment, look and feel development, past winner communications, and HRBP coordination.
- Nominations phase: Three-week window with gamified newscast-style mid-campaign updates, manager enablement, past winner voices, and an intranet source of truth. 480 nominations received, up from 350 the previous year.
- Selection phase: Past winners voted anonymously on top selects. HRBP review. Leadership final sign-off. Winner names confirmed the day before filming.
- Pre-show phase: Intranet takeover, newsletter features, and Slack hype copy building toward the show.
- Show day: Live virtual show. 697 attendees. Eight award categories plus a surprise Accomplish More award added mid-show.
The strategic decisions
The newsroom theme kept the language consistent across the seven-month campaign. Before nominations opened, we featured past winners to help employees connect the awards to people they knew. The campaign received 480 nominations, a 37% increase over the previous year.
I used AI to develop commercial segments as breaks between awards. Written in the newsroom voice, they added humor and kept the show's tone consistent. It was one of the first times I used AI as a creative production tool.
The production challenge
Due to updates to the nomination committee's selections, the finalist slate was not confirmed until the day prior to filming. The script I wrote had placeholder names and metrics that had to be updated last minute without requiring a full rewrite. That structural decision created a manageable solution. The script was easily approved and production remained on time.
What I'd do differently
A majority of nominations came in the final week of the window. This year we're aligning the nominations cycle more closely with our performance review cycle, so employees have their teammates' contributions top of mind when they nominate.
The broader lesson
Past winner voices gave employees a personal connection to the nominations campaign. The live show recognized this year's winners, with humor and surprise built into the program.