LONDON – May 18, 2026 – Gate One, the digital business transformation consultancy within Havas, today announced that it has been shortlisted in the People and Leadership category at the MCA awards 2026 for its work supporting Boehringer Ingelheim with a VR immersive storytelling initiative to bring their ‘Our Behaviors’ cultural framework to life and delivering better outcomes for patients.
The MCA Awards celebrate the brilliant talent working in the sector, from individual finalists ranging from young apprentices to technology consultants, thought leaders and experienced consultants.
The project
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.
Using agile sprints, a Minimum Viable Product was rapidly developed and tested with employees and senior leaders. Early feedback prompted critical pivots: the experience was rebalanced to avoid cognitive overload, the patient narrative was deepened to strengthen emotional resonance, and complex gamification was replaced with reflective decision making moments. These changes ensured the experience encouraged insight and empathy rather than distraction.
The final outcome was a 20 minute immersive story centred on “Sarah,” a cancer patient navigating treatment challenges. Participants step into the role of an Our Behaviors advocate, guiding decisions across Research & Development, Clinical Trials and Production. Each chapter brings a different behaviour to life, clearly illustrating the real world consequences of choices on patient outcomes. To ensure global reach and inclusion, the experience was translated into seven languages and made accessible via a desktop version.
Beyond the VR experience itself, Gate One designed a comprehensive “change wrapper” to embed learning and sustain impact. This included reflection cards, team impulse packs and facilitated discussions to help teams translate insight into practical action. Dedicated local coordinators were trained using immersive, hands on methods, building confidence in VR technology and enabling long term reuse of the headsets for future initiatives.
The impact has been significant. The experience has become a defining cultural moment for BI, reconnecting employees with the organisation’s purpose: transforming lives for generations to come. Colleagues reported renewed empathy, urgency and clarity around how their daily decisions affect patients.
Survey results reinforce this success. Initial feedback showed a 90% satisfaction score, with 93% agreeing VR was a powerful tool and 89% feeling inspired to apply Our Behaviors in their work. Follow up surveys confirmed sustained impact, with 97% of participants recalling the experience weeks later and 85% maintaining a strong sense of urgency to act.
At Gate One, we tackle your toughest challenges and accelerate your boldest ambitions. Our mission is to deliver meaningful change.
