In brief
In 2024, Boehringer Ingelheim developed a new unifying cultural framework— ‘Our Behaviors’—to sustain success together across all businesses, regions and levels. To shift from awareness to action, Boehringer Ingelheim took a bold step using Virtual Reality (VR) to bring the behaviours and the impact on patients to life for their people.
Gate One were brought in help turn Boehringer Ingelheim’s vision into a reality – ensuring the tool’s visual impacts were realised. The resulting Minimum Viable Product was widely tested across Boehringer Ingelheim, generating valuable feedback and securing senior leadership buy-in. From there, we helped shape the experience—storyboarding the emotions to evoke, the environments to visualise, and the real-world challenges to spotlight.
The result was a powerful story about Sarah, a patient struggling with the side effects of their current treatment while searching for a better option. Within the experience, the user steps into the role of an ‘Our Behaviors’ advocate, guiding colleagues across the Boehringer Ingelheim value chain to make decisions that keep Sarah’s wellbeing front of mind.
Over 100 colleagues contributed—subject matter experts, actors, IT teams, shipping and logistics teams, translation teams—to bring this project to life and demonstrate how emerging technology can drive emotional connection and behavioural alignment. Acting as a trailblazer for the industry, this project shows what can be achieved when innovation meets purpose, and where storytelling, together with innovative technology, has the power to transform
The client’s challenge
In 2024, Boehringer Ingelheim recognised the need for a new unifying cultural framework to sustain success together across all businesses, regions and levels.
The result was ‘Our Behaviors’—five core behaviours designed to drive progress towards their strategic goals.
By 2025, awareness of this new cultural framework was high, but there was a gap. It remained theoretical and lacking connection and translation to real life scenarios; it was also seen as leadership-owned rather than lived across the business. To shift from awareness towards action, Boehringer Ingelheim took a bold step using Virtual Reality (VR) to bring the behaviours and the impact on patients to life for their people.
Our approach: Bringing ‘Our Behaviors’ to life—together
Boehringer Ingelheim recognised early on that delivering a high-impact VR experience would require specialist expertise. Gate One (alongside other Havas partners including Havas SO and ‘We Are Anatomy’) were brought in help turn Boehringer Ingelheim’s vision into a reality – ensuring the tools visual impacts were realised.
The resulting Minimum Viable Product was widely tested across Boehringer Ingelheim, generating valuable feedback and securing senior leadership buy-in. From there, we helped shape the experience—storyboarding the emotions to evoke, the environments to visualise, and the real-world challenges to spotlight.
The result was a powerful story about Sarah, a patient struggling with the side effects of their current treatment while searching for a better option. Within the experience, the user steps into the role of an ‘Our Behaviors’ advocate, guiding colleagues across the Boehringer Ingelheim value chain to make decisions that keep Sarah’s wellbeing front of mind.
To ensure global relevance and local impact, we ensured the experience was translated into seven languages.
Agile sprints supported rapid design, development, testing and iteration of the experience. And once finalised, we supported the global deployment of headsets, as well as the localised communication assets to build excitement for the launch. To track impact, we built a Power BI dashboard to monitor progress and sentiment at both global and local levels.
”Large pharmaceutical organisations are increasingly focussed on fostering innovation and a performance mindset, all while striving to better meet the needs of patients. At the heart of this is a healthy company culture, one that fosters a deep sense of belonging and purpose. Leading the charge to shape a culture of innovation and change for over 54,000 people globally at Boehringer Ingelheim was both a tremendous responsibility and a remarkable opportunity.
When thoughts, emotions, and actions are aligned, innovation becomes more than just delivering exceptional products or services, it becomes a way of working, growing, and evolving together. It’s also about how we harness technology to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world. While we had the technology, we needed Gate One’s expertise to bridge the gap between technology and people, transforming technology into a value-added innovation.
Over 18 months, we partnered to drive cultural transformation and ignite a lasting desire to innovate. United by a shared vision, we kept the wheel of innovation turning, not only to discover new ways to offer better treatment to patients but also to enhance the quality of life for patients around the world.
Helen NachtigallGlobal Rollout Lead Competency Framework, Boehringer Ingelheim
Innovating to inspire change
At a time of ongoing organisational change, PowerPoint alone wouldn’t cut through the noise: something different should spark engagement and reflection among its workforce, as well as building learning agility. This VR use case offered a new, and previously untapped path for Boehringer Ingelheim. In fact, this innovation is unexplored in the Life Sciences industry as a whole, with very few examples of VR being used as a storytelling tool to drive change.
From the start, we worked closely with a wide group of stakeholders across the organisation to ensure the script was both accurate and meaningful. Over 100 colleagues contributed—subject matter experts, actors, IT teams, shipping and logistics teams, translation teams—to bring this project to life.
We partnered with the Patient Engagement team to share a narrative that would resonate emotionally and improve patient outcomes. The result: an experience allowing employees to practice ‘Our Behaviors’ in real-life yet risk-free environments. Colleagues enhance their knowledge, and develop their ability and confidence to apply skills in their everyday roles.
We defined set roles at both global and local levels for regional success. Each site had a dedicated coordinator to guide participants through the experience, recognising that for many, this was their first time using VR. We also ran training sessions to upskill these coordinators, which received positive feedback and strong engagement as a new and innovative training technique. We hope this will drive the use of VR technology within local markets that gets to keep the VR headsets for other use cases.
We created a suite of end-to-end change wrapper materials, ranging from prompt reflection cards handed to VR participants after they completed the experience to drive individual and collective reflections, to a team impulse, a format for leaders to identify how the team’s key takeaways from the experience can help them reach their full potential.
Together, we created a new use case for VR technology at Boehringer Ingelheim, driving global awareness and building capability through one project, an innovation that we hope will be a trailblazer for the industry as a whole.
Key results
Boehringer Ingelheim has seen a meaningful shift in employee engagement—driven by a powerful, tangible demonstration of how technology can shape their future. This initiative has become a defining moment, helping regional teams to connect their behaviours with Boehringer Ingelheim’s shared purpose: to transform lives for generations to come.
At the heart of this transformation is a renewed focus on the patient—brought to life through the story of “Sarah and her family.” Indicators show this narrative becoming a catalyst for behavioural change, prompting teams to act with greater empathy, urgency and clarity. The experience has sparked deep emotional responses. Colleagues have shared reflections based on their own stories and reflections on the lasting impact of VR.
The feedback speaks for itself:
- “I was amazed by the visual and interactive experience.”
- “I feel hope, passion for life, and a fighting spirit.”
- “I can still recall the change in her tone of voice.”
- “The experience will connect development from the research phase through to clinical application, aligned with ‘Our Behaviors’.”
We designed one feedback activity to be completed immediately after the experience, and another to be filled out during a team reflection session three weeks later. The intention of having a second survey is to measure behaviour change over time. As of mid-July 2025, the survey data revealed:
- A 90% satisfaction score of all respondents to the initial survey.
- 93% of people agreed or strongly agreed that VR was a powerful tool – showing the opportunity of this innovative technology.
- 94% said they valued the experience and felt it was worthwhile.
- 88% have seen an increase in their knowledge of ‘Our Behaviors’, immediately following the experience.
- 89% feel inspired to now actively start applying ‘Our Behaviors’ to their day-to-day work lives.
Data from the follow up sessions, designed to allow teams to reflect and discuss the experience and what it means to them, are equally promising:
- This 90% satisfaction score was maintained in the follow up session (one to two weeks after the experience).
- 85% still had a lasting sense of urgency to apply ‘Our Behaviors’ in their day-to-day work.
- An amazing 97% of respondents agreed that ‘they can still remember the content of the experience’ in the follow up session, showing the evocative power of the technology.
- And finally, 97% would also like to see more Virtual Reality used at Boehringer Ingelheim.
This project was a bold step forward for Boehringer Ingelheim with innovation at its core. It shows how emerging technology, when used with purpose, can drive emotional connection and behavioural alignment. It marks a pivotal moment for Boehringer Ingelheim, where innovation meets purpose, and where storytelling has the power to transform changes.
