Recruitment ad campaign

Our longstanding client Surrey Police approached us to create a compelling recruitment campaign that would stand out from the noise in local media and engage equally with Surrey Police’s diverse resourcing audiences.

Their previous attempt a year earlier saw only six applicants. This time, they wanted to create something that would stand out to drive up applications into the hundreds.

Amongst the creative ideas presented, the ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ campaign, conceived to capture the imagination of ‘children of all ages’ was immediately a front runner. The striking campaign also enabled us to leverage the message that a Police Officer can ‘play many roles’ in one day.

The high visibility and accessible campaign utilised 3 different toy figure characters, each designed to resemble Playmobil characters coupled with the hard-hitting headline. The CGI toy figure illustrations were a bespoke commission from a specialist artist and specified to be similar but not infringe the IP of the Playmobil range of toys. A range of different personas were able to be used in this concept to appeal to niche and diverse audiences.

The result
This highly successful recruitment ad campaign with significant standout, saw an unprecedented 390 applications to key roles at all levels across Surrey Police recruitment. That is a 6500% increase on the previous year.
The campaign appeared as both on-and offline advertisements as well as appearing concurrently on recruitment information packs and on exhibition graphics at local careers fairs and roadshows for a joined-up image.

Testimonial
“We have worked with DesignInc on a number of public information and police advertising campaigns over the years. Their understanding of our needs and goals for this latest recruitment ad campaign was, by far, the core factor in its success.”

– Communications Manager, Surrey Police

Police Recruitment