At the end of this month, the stars of recruitment advertising come together to celebrate the best in the industry at the RAD Awards 2023. Here we profile the shortlist for Video Campaign of the Year, sponsored by Crimtan.
Powered by Me, Empowered by BT – Ph.Creative
BT Group wanted to create a campaign that would drive more applications from women to become engineers, and in January 2022 reached out to the central recruitment marketing for help. There were around 1,000 employees in engineering services, but only 1% were women.
Powered by Me, Empowered by BT aimed to showcase the role of engineers in connecting people with one another, particularly since the pandemic. It was decided that one ‘hero’ video would play a central part in the campaign, featuring engineers nominated by the business. Further short videos would show one-to-one interviews with employees’ stories and be used as organic content alongside paid activity. Some clips were used across both streams of activity and the campaign was transmitted via feed ads, Facebook and LinkedIn.
There was one hero video, seven interview videos and dozens of Instagram reels and stories, over a two-part campaign. Overall, the videos received more than 1.3m impressions, 203,407 plays, 2,404 reactions and 11,435 clicks on links. Cost per click was just 60p. BT hired 23 women out of 99 jobs offered, representing 25% of total hires. This is a significant achievement with just 1% of engineers, operations and patch managers being female up to this point.
Bupa Characters in Care – ThirtyThree
The Covid pandemic threw carers into the spotlight, but as restrictions eased, Bupa and other employers saw many of their care staff return to roles in sectors such as retail and hospitality. It needed to convince more candidates to apply for roles in care, but this was a challenge.
It set out to build a campaign that would show a ‘slice of life’ of the relationships care workers built with residents. Bupa wanted to show the residents’ stories, jokes and fascinating histories, combined with carers’ compassion to building those relationships – in other words, the ‘characters in care’. Four main films showcased characters that make a career in care specific, starring real residents and carers. The films were unscripted, Gogglebox-style conversations that gave a snapshot of these special relationships.
The videos acquired over 400,000 views, there were more than 29,000 clicks, and more than 2,000 applications for jobs.
Capgemini Active Inclusion – Pink Squid
For Capgemini, fostering an inclusive culture is integral to building a diverse and thriving workforce and creating competitive advantage. The company’s internal networks create a safe space for employees with similar backgrounds and experiences. Capgemini wanted to support its networks by raising awareness of them internally, increasing their membership and allyship, and showcasing the impact they could make.
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Winners will be announced on 26 January at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.
Capgemini has six key networks focused on race equality, women, LGBTQI+, capability (disability and carers), veterans and mental health. By talking to members it could understand the impact of these groups on themselves and the company. Based on these discussions the company wanted to shift the mindset from acceptance to active inclusion. Stories Best Shared showed employees the inner workings of each network. One person was selected from each to share a personal story in a letter, read by someone on camera outside of the network. Readers were interviewed to understand their reactions, after which the writer was revealed and both parties were encouraged to connect. Following this, the audience could join the conversation and hopefully the network.
The ‘Stories’ exercise has been one of the top 10 most viewed on Capgemini’s UK website, with a 280% increase in active dwell time. All of the company’s networks have enjoyed membership growth, in particular the mental health network Talking Heads which gained 32% more members as a result.
GE Together, We Can Make a World of Difference – Pink Squid
GE Renewable Energy needs to hire great people in engineering/technology, field services and manufacturing to achieve its goal of supporting the world to lower carbon emissions. A series of videos needed to show key pillars of its employer value proposition and feel like distinct stories within the larger narrative.
GE worked with Pink Squid to develop a creative vision and assets for each pillar. It conducted focus groups with employees across the relevant fields to see whether the content resonated. The result was an overarching EVP video and four pillar videos, alongside a set of campaign assets, all produced using real footage of GE Renewable Energy employees at work.
The launch of the campaign resulted in 18.8m impressions across at least four countries and six channels, at an average cost of $3.18 per 1,000 impressions. The cost per trackable application was $16.60, compared to a benchmark of $80 to $120. The campaign generated 120,000 clocks across all platforms, more than 3.5 times higher than the estimated total clicks of 34,000.
Metropolitan Police F is for Family – Tonic Agency
The Met Police covers 600 square miles in London and serves nearly 9 million people across highly diverse communities, where over 300 languages are spoken. However, attracting a pool of candidates that reflects these communities can be challenging because there are pre-existing perceptions about joining the police.
It produced a series of films that addressed and acknowledged the concerns raised by communities in London about working for the Met Police. The force asked real families of serving police officers to share their experiences and offer a different perspective, ultimately showing the positive impact of the decision to become a police officer, and the pride felt by family members.
The campaign continues to perform above benchmark for its view-through rate at +2.47, with engagement still strong on the second burst of promotion. Click through is also above planned, at +0.23. The campaign reached 1.6m individuals, attracted 5.5m impressions, 5.3m complete views, and a view-through rate of 97.47%. In a recent campaign evaluation, 17% of Londoners could recall the video, increasing to 28% for people of Black African heritage.
Unlocked Graduate Leadership Programme – SMRS
Unlocked Graduates is working to break cycles of reoffending by identifying candidates to work as frontline prison officers for two years. It wanted to attract 2,300 completed applications, with 30% of those from underrepresented groups. A further target was to garner 1,300 entries to an on-campus competition in collaboration with Rate My Placement.
Central to this was a fast-paced hero video that inspired graduates to choose a career where they could make their contribution count. This meant the organisation could tell the Unlocked story in an engaging way and give candidates an impactful and inspiring message. The market was tough: 48% of employers reported seeing fewer applications than usual and there was a 20% increase in graduate opportunities from 2019.
The campaign attracted 2,343 applications, with 38% from underrepresented groups. There were 7.4 million impressions including 2.2 million on TikTok. Further results included almost 80,000 views on YouTube and 70,408 clicks online. TikTok featured the video in its creator studio as an example of an excellent ad.
Westminster City Council All Kinds of Extraordinary – tmp.worldwide a PeopleScout company
Westminster City Council is at the heart of one of the UK’s most diverse areas and wanted to ensure its recruitment reflected the community it serves. It wanted to show WCC as somewhere where people can truly be themselves, whatever their background. It wanted to show its EVP “all kinds of extraordinary” was more than words on a page.
It chose to show the story of Shofa, a WCC worker whose brother suffered with mental health problems and died tragically young. She was inspired to create the Westminster Youth Market, an inclusive platform where local teenagers learn about entrepreneurship and develop their personal skills.
This film generated impressive results: 55% of all offers at senior level identified as female; 37% of senior-level vacancies attracted a candidate from an ethnic minority, up 7% year on year, and two-thirds of internal vacancies were filled. At the same time, advertising costs dropped by more than 40%. The same messaging is being used internally, raising awareness of the opportunities available to employees. and has substantially increased internal mobility.
WSP The Great Resignation – Havas People
The pandemic led many candidates to rethink their careers, leading to what many observers dubbed ‘the Great Resignation’. Engineering consultancy firm WSP needed to hire 2,000 new employees, split across 350 graduates and 1,650 mid-hire positions. It realised that candidates often wanted evidence of employers sticking to their stated values, or who were committed to making meaningful changes. Areas including wellbeing, collaboration, belonging, learning and purpose came up in research.
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WSP and Havas People developed a series of videos for social media that dialled up the humour. The first film introduced viewers to the company, while the second spoke directly to candidates who might be thinking about the Great Resignation. Five ambassador-led films then showed how WSP had adapted its ways of working and why. They created teaser videos for the hero films to share across Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, starring broadcaster David Meade. Everything had to be shot in just one day due to Covid restrictions and limited time with David Meade and WSP ambassadors.
After only eight weeks, the videos had generated a 30% uptick in applications, with candidates often mentioning ‘the amazing or bonkers funny guy’ as just one of the reasons they watched. On LinkedIn, there were almost 400,000 impressions, and a 0.78% clickthrough rate for the initial burst of the campaign. On Facebook, there were almost 1.4m impressions for the initial burst, 18,602 clicks and a clickthrough rate of 1.33%.
