Insight

The Dorset Business Awards 2017

Ross Miles - 19.10.2017



We were privileged enough to be named a finalist for the 2017 Dorset Business Awards for our work with Dorset HealthCare on their latest recruitment campaign, which targeted nurses working in London, and encouraged them to relocate to Dorset to pursue their career.

Challenge

Back at the end of 2016, just before Christmas, we had been approached by Dorset HealthCare due to a shortage of trained medical staff on the South Coast. They needed an agency ready to challenge convention, to help their cross-channel recruitment campaign stand out in the busy London media. The plan was to attract London-based workers to relocate. Our secret weapon? The beauty of Dorset! As it turned out, the hardest part of the challenge was convincing London Underground to accept ads that promoted the benefits of Dorset over the “Big Smoke”. [face palm]

Actions

Our role in the project was to develop the creative and digital aspects of the campaign, and deliver a compelling and relevant creative content that would appeal directly to their target audiences: nurses in the London area, and potential employees already living in Dorset. Research suggested that a focus on career paths was one of the most compelling angles for these audiences, and would help differentiate Dorset HealthCare from others who were competing for the same employees.

To crystallise this creative approach, we ran a workshop with the Dorset HealthCare team to explore the motivations for people to work in the NHS and why people would relocate from London to Dorset. Our conclusion was that the core values were the same, wherever you work for the NHS, but the location is a unique offering. This gave us a foundation upon which to build the creative content.

We focused on the lifestyle differences by contrasting the negative aspects of the commute in London, versus the beautiful and vibrant Dorset surroundings. We created visually striking imagery using real nurses in their uniforms in two contrasting settings, asking the question: ‘Why not leave all this behind… and become a nurse in Dorset?’

The second part of the campaign focused on the variety of jobs available. The challenge was to overcome the perception that all the positions were nursing. Our approach here was to showcase the huge variety of jobs and career progression using authentic voices of real Dorset Healthcare employees.

All was going swimmingly until Transport for London decided the campaign cast our capital too villainously, causing a tense few days. A few tweaks secured approval, similar to the usual Clearcast wranglings you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever tried to get a TV ad cleared to air!

Results

Once launched, the campaign exceeded expectations. There were over 21,000 unique visitors of the dedicated microsite we created, with over 20% of those visitors proceeding to view job vacancies. Further to that, job applications increased by over 100% for the same period the previous year, while the campaign garnered 17 pieces of unique, earned regional and national media coverage including Sky News and the BBC.

We’re looking forward to the Gala Dinner on 23rd November the Dorset Business Awards will be hosting in honour of all the great work being done by local businesses. We’ll have fingers crossed that the work done by this particular local business, for a crucial local service provider, gets further recognition.

If you’d like to contact Fireworx about an upcoming digital project, or are interested in our commitment to challenge convention and think disruptively, please get in touch with us on 01202 559 559, or drop us an email on ideas@fwx.co.uk