Thousands more careers site visitors. Hundreds more applications. And how did we do it?
With 64 fake spiders, 15 litres of custard and 1 tube of wasabi paste – amongst other things.
This is the story of how we created a fun, conversation-sparking event that captured the essence of the AA employer brand, raised awareness of their contact centre roles, and helped them make the successful hires they needed.
SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
- Raising awareness of roles
- Reflecting a fun and friendly culture
- Boosting social media activity
- Increasing careers site visitors
- Record-breaking application figures
SCOPE & SCALE
The AA has two big contact centres in Oldbury (near Birmingham) and Newcastle. With ambitious hiring targets to meet they’d used a range of attraction methods, from job boards and paid social media, to taxi wraps and cinema. They weren’t getting the results they needed, so it was time for something bigger and bolder.
SITUATION
We discussed and planned the objectives carefully with the Talent Attraction team and local stakeholders. We wanted to raise general awareness of the organisation in local audiences and encourage them to spread the word, so we needed a way of reaching a large number of individuals easily, effectively and creatively. The AA also wanted us to showcase their fun and friendly culture, and so our event was a great fit with this.
A BRAND MESSAGING-ALIGNED EVENT
The Ready for ANYTHING? strapline is the central message in all of the AA’s recruitment communications activity, so it made sense to take this message and see just who was Ready for ANYTHING? amongst local audiences.
FUN TO TAKE PART IN. FUN TO WATCH.
With a big prize on offer to incentivise contestants, the event was built around getting volunteers on stage to take part in a mystery challenge. We built ‘The Random Challenge Generator’ – a big screen flashing through a series of silly, messy tasks. The contestant pushes a big yellow button to stop the screen, which brings up their challenge. We also engaged a celebrity host, to help draw the crowds, engage with the audience, and keep the fun moving. We ran two of these shopping centre-based outdoor events – one in Newcastle, the other in Birmingham.
PROMOTING THE OPPORTUNITIES
Maximising social media activity before, during and after the event, we also live-streamed the challenges. Filming on the day enabled us to create short videos for follow-up content to promote the AA’s contact centre roles. On the event days, we gave out flyers encouraging people to get involved and driving to the AA careers site, while the digital screen and on-stage announcements also highlighted the AA’s local career opportunities.
“Both events were a massive success and surpassed our expectations in terms of the level of engagement, prior, during & post the events.” Craig Morgans Head of Talent Acquisition, HR Shared Services, Learning & Development
RESULTS
UNPRECEDENTED CAREERS SITE VISIT FIGURES
Social media and event build-up activity drove c60,000 careers visits across the weeks of the events.
Typically, 1,500 – 2,000 people visit the AA careers site each day. For the Newcastle event, this increased to 5,000 in just one day, with a record high of 7,100 in one day for Birmingham.
RECORD NUMBERS OF APPLICATIONS
While the AA saw a huge increase in applications for their contact centre in Oldbury, they had record-breaking figures for Newcastle. With a month-on-month increase from 576 to 1026, this was 436 more than their previous application record of 590!
SUCCESSFUL HIRES MADE
So far, both the Newcastle and Oldbury contact centres have made 12 hires each as a result of the events.
