The challenge

In a fiercely competitive talent market, strong benefits alone weren’t enough — the benefits experience had to truly stand out.

As one of the largest players in the U.S. sports‑tech and entertainment market, the company had already invested heavily in innovative, market‑leading benefits designed to attract the best and the brightest while supporting employees’ physical, emotional and financial well‑being.

But the experience itself fell short. Benefits information lived in dense, uninspired materials that were difficult to navigate. Complicating matters was its young workforce: the average employee was under 35. Making complex topics like compensation and benefits understandable and engaging to a youthful, fast-moving population was critical.

Without a more persuasive way to connect employees to what was available to them, a significant investment risked falling short of its potential. Maintaining dominance in a highly competitive, high‑stakes industry would require a bold, breakthrough approach to engage top talent.

Our solution

Segal recognized that solving the problem would require not better benefits but a better experience around them.

The work centered on a holistic communications strategy that linked compensation and benefits into a single, cohesive total rewards story — one grounded in the company’s values and shaped by employee feedback about what mattered most.

That story came to life through a branded microsite that launched during open enrollment and grew into a robust website that is now the premier source of benefits information year-round. Creative storytelling techniques, from a high-energy launch video and infographics to sports-themed trading cards, spoke to employees and made benefits feel relevant, timely and special.

As important, benefits language finally sounded like the company itself — casual, confident, sporty — making it easier for employees to understand, trust and act on the benefits messaging they received.

The results

The shift didn’t just change how benefits looked. It changed how employees engaged.

With a clear benefits destination and consistent, branded campaigns driving awareness, participation surged across the company’s benefits programs. Medical plan take rate increased from 89 percent to 96 percent. Participation in financial well‑being programs rose 10 percent. And voluntary benefits enrollment surged 500 percent.

More than a communications win, the effort reshaped how benefits functioned inside the organization.

What had once been an under-leveraged investment became a competitive advantage — strengthening recruiting, reinforcing culture and helping a fast‑growing company get significantly more value from programs it had already built.

The effort’s success underscores how smart benefits communications can elevate total rewards from an uninspired transactional exercise to a strategic business tool — one that helps organizations engage employees, stand out in the talent market and maximize the return on their benefits investment.