Hershey’s food-safety division needed engaging training media for their C-suite executives, to be taken once every four months. The training needed to be memorable enough that they would not need to retake the training before going onto the next module; and it had to be entertaining enough that executives would actually enjoy taking it. Finally, the top brass wanted to utilize virtual reality but didn’t know how it should be used. They just thought it was really cool.

The idea of a crime drama came from the learning objectives they wanted their team to walk away with: ask better questions. “Better” can mean a lot of things, but after a few meetings it was clear that have a predictive and investigative mindset was important in preventing disasters down the line. Also, many of the execs would never step foot in a processing plant, so they would have to be able to simulate potential disasters.

Project

Food-safety training that combines Virtual Reality with a crime drama narrative.

Client

Hershey

What I Did

Story Design
Technical Advising
Screenwriting
Cinematography
Directing Actors

Story-Driven

Engages learners at a high level of emotional intelligence and helps them remember the content longer.

Easy Interface

Learners were not bogged down by awkward Flash players or choppy video, and could easily access content globally.

Integrated Technology

Viewers could interact with objects in a VR environment, with the suspenseful narrative scenes acting much like “cut-scenes” in a video game.

Moral Ambiguity

A lack of polarized “good” or “bad” characters allowed for greater and more nuanced dialogue.