This story originally appeared on Contagious I/O, our online intelligence tool. Focusing on the action and adventure is something that people already know and that has created a kind of khaki-blindness for this type of advertising; they just ignored it and glazed over at that point. British Army Recruitment for Commonwealth Countries: It is very easy for Commonwealth citizens to join the British Army. Quite simply put, there’s not enough of those front-line action seekers in the pool of young people that they are trying to recruit. However, this does work as a fully integrated campaign through the year. Then we thought we needed to do some that were talking about the Army itself and what those moments might be – a moment in the Army when you repeat things and it suddenly becomes the norm to lead to your growing confidence. Share. Kean: The Army and Capita are very receptive to anything that will create a provocation. What we needed to do at a core task level was make the Army appeal to a broader group of people who didn’t see the Army as something that was their calling and or as something that they necessarily wanted to do. Rhonwen Lally: Historically and traditionally, the Army has shown adventure, adrenaline and action in their advertising. It’s like any kind of cathartic process, they change as they are going through this experience. What challenges did you face along the way with the campaign and how did you overcome them? In 2018, the Expressing my Emotions campaign focused on challenging the stereotypes of who belongs in the British Army by dramatising how emotion affects everyone. ... but it may be the biggest problem for recruitment into the British Army . (2007). So, the level and seniority and the number of stakeholders is one of the challenges that we have. A lot of people will ask what is has to do with them and the answer is nothing, they’ve been through the process. Lally: None that are different to our other clients, it’s just the universal industry standard. In 2001, our predecessors fo cussed solely on recruitment and retention in its Report The Strategic Defence Review: Policy for People6 which considered issues relating to both recruitment and retention with particular re ference to the relationship between the Armed If you're not sure whether joining as a soldier or officer is right for you, you can run a quick check with the entry options tool. The British Army has launched the third and final instalment of its three year ‘Belonging’ campaign, designed to raise awareness and get young people to consider joining the army for the first time, watch one of the adverts here. If so, please explain this brief – what was the challenge? Lally: They give us a brief in the sense that they have very specific targets for applications so there is a really clear objective at the heart of it all. Subscribe to the Contagious weekly newsletter and stay up to date with creative news, marketing trends and cutting-edge research. As advertisers, we have to understand and respect how young people’s lives are changing and the kind of pressures that are on them as much as possible. Similarly, the British Army has seen initial success with the #YourArmyNeedsYou campaign. What do you think has been the most effective recruitment campaign to-date and why? ", Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office. Recruitment, Retention and Turnover, London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. History doesn't repeat itself but it sure does rhyme.' They want to reach 18- to 24-year-olds for regular soldiers and then up to 35-year-olds for reserves. Forces, the recruitment pr ocess, and the structure of initial training. It’s quite a complicated customer journey, which isn’t the TV and mass media stuff, we do a hell of a lot of things in all sorts of different media. Adam Kean: A good way of thinking about it is that there are a group of people who have family in the Army and they always tend to think of it as an option. Recruiting and retaining Armed Forces personnel 3 Summary Recruiting and retaining the right number of well-trained personnel is vital for the continuing success of the United Kingdom s Armed Forces. Some men failed the medical test. This shift in mindset might seem small, but actually they talked about how it was a huge transformation in the way that they saw themselves, in the way that they saw what they could do and that it was something which then unlocked the amazing achievements that they reached in the Army. Kean: It’s very much a recruitment and numbers based thing, but it does take a long time to join the Army. 6. People need something to belong to and believe in. If you’re leaving your parents and your family, it’s a time when you desire it and a lot of people find it in the Army. The report also estimates that it costs £74 million to retain 2,500 trained personnel against £189 million to recruit and provide initial training in basic military skills for the same number of new people. We talked about that and then about the idea that society in general has a certain anxiety about young people who are wondering if they have that self-belief. Ordinary recruiting methods failed to supply the number of men required to fill the Army ranks. Angry MPs have labelled the British Army "naive" for signing up to an "abysmal" outsourcing deal with Capita for military recruiting and associated IT systems. Essentially, these campaigns go up to cabinet level. The messages around skills and career wouldn’t be enough to achieve this because those are the things that other recruitment brands and other armed forces are offering; we wanted to shift away from that. If we’re offending Nigel Farage, the Daily Mail or Piers Morgan etc. People always talk about the physical confidence and fitness rather than the mental side and we felt we could tap into that. Army aims to win new recruits with promise of 'lifetime confidence' A recruitment drive aims to show how a career in the army can build lifelong self-confidence in contrast to short-term boosts. The campaign is also supported by radio, digital and short social media clips that show how confidence can be acquired when you join the British Army. Kean: Talking to the Army internally about the new campaign was a massive learning and something that we’ll definitely carry on. Results / According to the agency, in 2017, there was a 31% year-on-year increase in regular soldier applications and a 48% increase in reserve applications; in 2018, applications reached a 5-year high. What we’re trying to do is position the Army in a way that shows benefits and a side to that career that you just can’t find in any other career out there. But, given current levels of operational deployment, workloads on Service men and women in some areas are heavy." The big shift that we’ve made and what each campaign has done for the last four years is show a different side to Army life that people haven’t seen before. We’re not just against the other armed services, we’re trying to be the best employer in the United Kingdom out of everyone for young people. Lally: There’s one figure that can be shared at the moment and that’s that four days after the campaign launched in January, there were the highest number of applications in Capita’s records. 1. We have it in our families and we have it in our friendships, but it’s something that starts to break when you’re 18 years old and you start to move from one bit of your life to another – it’s a very dangerous time. Designed to highlight the many roles that Reservists can play in uniform and opportunities for both professional and personal development, the … It’s anecdotal, but it builds up. The way that we try to navigate that is by working closely with Capita and the Army to explain the rational and the creative work in a fair amount of detail to each level that we need to and make sure that people understand what we’ve done and why we’re doing it. Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning & Operation, 3 rd Edition, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc. CIPD. But, given current levels of operational deployment, workloads on Service men and women in some areas are heavy." It’s no longer just about those front-line action seekers and the people who might have always seen the Army as something that they’d like to do. How does this build on the Army’s long-term recruitment strategy? which are all working in similar ways – they’re all trying to find out what the core moment of tipping into confidence in the Army is. It’s all data driven and done in different bits of the year which are relevant to the times that people start to assess their careers. Do Lord Kitchener proud. January is a classic time when people start to think about a new job, but there are other similar times of the year, like during exam season for students. Kean: We’re not afraid of backlash. One is that in an ageing population, the pool of young people that we are recruiting from is in decline. ISBN: 0102943567 [Buy a hard copy of this report from TSO], Concerns about public spending and conduct, Full Report Volume II: Detailed survey reports and case studies (, Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the 2011-12 Accounts of the Ministry of Defence, Modern slavery Act transparency statement. Lally: There’s a number of macro societal challenges that we have to continue to tackle. 2. It’s doing that by building on and reinforcing this core belonging platform to show people what being part of the Army can mean for them. Lally: I’d add to that by saying that the power of standing for something, making a statement and going beyond what the category conventions are, which is a challenging thing to do, can be worth it and powerful. Recruitment for officers typically draws on upwardly-mobile young adults from age 18, and recruiters for these roles focus their resources on high-achieving schools and universities. This year is a really good example of us setting out to create a competitive positioning by saying it’s not just about getting confidence in the Army, it’s that you get confidence beyond any other type of job. Additionally, 1.56 million people visited the Army jobs website in January 2019, a 93% increase in comparison to January 2018. 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