Starbucks
Leadership Experience 2019
Winner of the 2020 Ex Award for Best B2B Conference or Event Environment!
CONTEXT
Periodically, Starbucks hosts a large-scale internal conference to bring together leaders from across the company—including more than 12,000 store and regional managers from the U.S. and Canada. The goal: to reconnect with the brand, their passion for coffee, their love for the people they work with and serve in their communities, and to immerse themselves in the strategies for company-wide success for years to come.
OUR APPROACH
Touch has produced every Global Leadership Conference for Starbucks since the company first hosted them in the mid-2000s. These events harness all of the integrated services Touch provides and engage every Touch team member along with an army of valued partners.
The most recent event was held in Chicago in September 2019 and hosted nearly 13,000 attendees at McCormick Place Convention Center and at the United Center arena. The experience was overwhelmingly successful at not just inspiring and energizing the attendees but also providing them with valuable tools to face the unique challenges they face every day in their stores.
The 2019 Leadership Experience was our most ambitious conference yet, featuring a range of experiential elements, featured below, that Touch developed the strategy for and then designed and produced the experience from end-to-end.
ROLE / Strategy, Communications, Experiential, Design, Video & Motion Graphics, Live Events
Event Strategy
Touch led conference strategy development, helping articulate the business objectives, desired outcomes, and detailed agenda for the conference, crafting a unique and unforgettable journey for all attendees. We developed the theme for the conference (“In This Moment”), and helped shape content and experiences that reminded attendees that being present in every moment—with customers, with each other, and with the people they love—is a powerful tool for good.
Arrival Experience
To meet the needs of 13,000 attendees landing in Chicago, we designed a first day agenda that provided a range of rolling experiences mapped to arrival times. This encompassed practical needs such as luggage storage and registration as well as leader-led rallies and a community engagement experience designed to connect store managers with valuable community-based organizations and tools, and culminated in a group dinner held at McCormick Place Lakeside Center.
General Sessions
Starbucks opted for an opening and a closing general session to bookend the experience. Our team worked closely with Starbuck CEO Kevin Johnson and the senior leadership team to build a dynamic opener that primed attendees to engage with the rest of the experience, including delivering a copy of the original Pike Place Store front door key as a symbol of their leadership and commitment to the company, both its heritage and its future. To close, we developed an uplifting session that made way for real commitments on the part of leadership and attendees.
Experience Hall
Every agenda included time in a 400,000 sq. ft. experience hall, built around a replica of Tryer Center, the company’s new innovation hub. Beginning with an immersive mission and values installation, the experience proceeded through every country where Starbucks sources coffee. In order to feature Starbucks’ farm in Costa Rica and the original Pike Place Market store, our team developed astonishing replicas of both for attendees to enjoy.
Development SessionS
Driven by the conference objectives, development sessions were created to provide store managers with critical information and tools focused on preparing them to better serve their customers, lead their Starbucks partners, and understand and optimize their business—plus a special session focused on mental wellness. Six cycles of each session were held to accommodate all 13,000 attendees.
Closing Event
Following the closing general session at United Center, attendees exited to one of the arena’s massive outdoor parking lots for a unforgettable party. Our team transformed the lot into an all-out Chicago street festival, featuring dueling pianos, a silent disco, and a mainstage area for live music and DJ Tina T—as well as a craft fair featuring handmade items from local artisans and neighborhood-themed stations featuring food from across Chicago.
