What I Use Instead of Another Internal Comms Post

Creativity matters in internal communications for the same reason it matters in advertising: getting people’s attention is hard.

Employees receive messages all day through email, Slack, newsletters, presentations, notifications and company updates. Even an important message can disappear in that noise.

Advertising and creative agencies have been solving this problem for decades. They use games, physical spaces, teasers and unexpected placements to make people stop and pay attention.

Internal comms can learn a lot from that.

Before publishing another Slack post, it is worth asking whether there is a more interesting way to deliver the same message. Could people interact with it, explore it, play with it or discover something for themselves?

Here are five examples based on my experience developing creative internal comms concepts and formats.

1. Use immersive formats to give people a real experience

Example: One challenge was helping relocated employees learn more about Serbia, the country they had recently moved to.

Instead of writing yet another guide to local history and culture, we built a reconstruction of a 1970s Yugoslav apartment right inside the office. It became an immersive exhibition where employees could interact with everything around them.

Furniture, books, magazines, posters and everyday objects recreated the period in detail. The space also included working technology from the time, including a television and radio.

A guide can give people facts about a country. An immersive space can make them curious enough to explore its history themselves.

2. Give people a chance to interact with the product

Example: Say you need to introduce employees to a new premium smartphone, but giving one to everyone is clearly unrealistic.

One solution could be a claw machine filled with several dozen phones. Employees activate it with their office badge, and everyone gets one attempt to win.

The chance of winning adds emotion to the launch and creates excitement around the product. People gather to watch their colleagues play, celebrate successful attempts and come over to see what is happening.

Only some employees win a phone, but many more get to interact with the product and become part of the launch.

3. Use gamification when people need to learn rules

Example: Office safety rules are important, but getting employees to actually remember them is a different task.

Instead of sending a document with a list of instructions, the same information can become an online game based on situations people might realistically face in the office.

Players have to decide what to do in each scenario. Everyone who answers correctly enters a random draw, with 20 winners receiving prizes.

The prize gives people an extra reason to participate, while the game makes them apply the rules rather than simply read them.

4. Put the message somewhere people do not expect it

Example: For an internal IT hackathon, one idea was to move the recruitment message away from the usual channels and put it on office mirrors.

The sticker said:

“Wow, you look smart. We need you at our hackathon.”

A QR code took employees directly to the registration page.

The mechanic was simple and inexpensive. The location was what made it noticeable. Employees expect company messages in Slack or email. They do not expect a hackathon invitation while looking in the bathroom mirror.

Creative internal comms does not always require a large budget.

5. Create curiosity before you make the announcement

Example: For the announcement of a new office in another city, the communication could start before the official news was released.

Employees began seeing Zoom backgrounds containing subtle clues about the city: its distinctive manhole covers, a small section of the city seen on a satellite map, and a decorative pattern associated with the place.

The clues were deliberately not obvious. People started discussing them in internal chats, comparing details, putting the clues together and trying to work out which city they pointed to.

By the time the official announcement arrived, employees had already spent time talking about the new office and trying to solve the puzzle.

The news itself was simple. The teaser gave people a reason to pay attention before it arrived.

That is the main principle I keep coming back to: borrow from advertising.

Not every internal message needs a creative activation. Sometimes a short Slack post or a straightforward email is exactly the right solution.

The problem starts when those formats become the automatic answer to every communication task.

If we want employees to remember something, talk about it, get curious or take action, it is worth thinking beyond the usual internal comms channels.

Advertising has spent decades testing how to get people’s attention and turn messages into experiences. Do not be afraid to borrow from it!