New Employee VR Experience
VR ensures every new pladis employee starts their career with pride in the McVitie’s product family
pladis, the parent company of McVitie’s and other brands, approached us to create a custom VR experience for new employees to instil a sense of pride in the products and a connection to the brand. It was essential that employees feel important and an integral part of bringing joy to consumers, regardless of their job role and location.
For employees to form a connection, first, they must feel an impact. And VR is the way to do it.
We created an immersive and groundbreaking VR experience that would be used by every employee, as well as at trade and recruitment events, and for internal comms. We worked intimately with the team at pladis to explore the history and legacy of the products. To demonstrate their present-day importance to people’s lives. And to understand their future vision.
Four different “demand spaces” are realised with custom animations and immersive content to tell their story. Photorealistic 3D product scans are placed in crisp, vibrant virtual environments that can be explored at will.
McVitie’s products bring joy and conjure memories to millions of people. Whether it’s a Hobnob with your afternoon cuppa, the Penguin bar in your school packed lunch, or the tin of Victoria Assortments in your nan’s cupboard, the connection runs deep.
But as a global FMCG company, with thousands of employees across six UK factories, as well as additional logistics centres and a head office, how do employees feel part of that? From directors to production line workers, everybody plays a role in spreading that joy. In creating those memories. So they need to know it.
Every pladis location has a VR headset which runs the app, and it’s one of the first things every new employee experiences. They can explore four different spaces, each with different products:
– Unwind & Indulge
– Snacking Together
– Better For You
– Youthful Snacking
In each, the hero products are showcased. In Unwind & Indulge, the user will see Chocolate Digestives or Hobnobs. In Snacking Together, they’ll find Jacob’s Cream Crackers or Mini Cheddars. Better For You features Go-A, while Youthful Snacking is home to Jaffa Cakes, Penguins or Gold Bars.
Each hero product was meticulously 3D scanned in a specially-built (and possibly world-first) biscuit scanning studio. Images lack texture. We wanted the crumbliness of the Hobnob and the crinkle of the packaging to shine through and stand out against the bright backdrops.
The user starts the experience in space with a black hole surrounded by stars. As it tilts, the unmistakable glaze of a chocolate digestive becomes clear. When ‘biscuit rise’ is complete, they’re taken to planet Earth to navigate the four portals, each with custom animation that matches the theme.
Snacking Together shows the hero products sitting around a table, while Youthful Snacking features a product fashion show complete with a catwalk and animated twirls. In each space, screens pop up that tell the story of the product, show archive imagery and video of its history, and present intriguing facts. For example, did you know McVitie’s baked the official cake for Queen Elizabeth II’s marriage to Prince Phillip? Were you aware that Brits eat 6.5 million Digestives each day? That’s 70 per second and equal to the height of Big Ben.
To get these assets, we visited the History of Advertising archive in Norfolk, home to hundreds, if not thousands, of historical print and broadcast adverts, all of which can be seen inside the VR app.
The Results?
The impact of the VR experience has since been validated through structured data collection conducted by pladis in November 2025. The results demonstrate strong performance across usability, engagement, learning outcomes, and brand connection. From a technical and accessibility perspective, 82% of employees found the VR headset very easy to use, while 94% reported no technical issues during their session. Any challenges raised were minor, typically relating to visual clarity or audio levels, with over half of participants (55%) rating the overall volume and visual clarity as Excellent. This reinforces the experience’s suitability for large-scale rollout across diverse employee groups, including factory-based and non-desk-based teams.
Beyond usability, the data highlights VR’s effectiveness as a learning and engagement tool. 76% of participants described the experience as very engaging, frequently using terms such as “immersive,” “dynamic,” and “interactive.” Crucially, 91% said the experience helped them better understand pladis and its key products, with many reporting improved recall and a clearer grasp of the overall product portfolio, even among employees already familiar with the brands.
The strongest outcome was seen in emotional connection: employees who felt “very connected” to pladis increased from 45% before the experience to 91% afterwards, a +46 percentage point uplift. This effect was particularly pronounced among manufacturing-site employees. The experience also achieved strong advocacy, with 91% saying they would definitely recommend it to new colleagues, and a growing appetite for future VR-based learning modules, including deeper product education, factory tours, onboarding, and safety training.
Going beyond its initial intended use, the VR experience is now used at trade and recruitment events, as part of internal communications, and to educate existing employees.
What’s Next?
If your organisation needs something special to communicate key messages and leave a lasting impression, contact us today to find out how we can help bring your project to life.
If your organisation needs to take their training to the next level, contact us today to find out how we can help bring your project to life.
