The Story:
During their 75th anniversary, the NHS went through one of their most pressured periods of all time- caused by the global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.
NHS Professionals (NHSP) is owned by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and works in partnership with hospital trusts to provide a well of highly skilled temporary workers, who want to work flexibly within the NHS.
We were honoured to be approached by the NHS during the COVID-19 lockdown to launch an emergency recruitment campaign, in response to the rapid rise in UK COVID-19 cases to help the process needed to ease the strain on our already hard-working healthcare professionals. They needed a campaign that would assist in recruiting 22,000 healthcare professionals to the frontline.
The Strategy:
The ‘Stand up. Step forward. Save lives.’ campaign was born; intended to recruit nurses, doctors and healthcare professionals to the frontline.
The target audience for this campaign was healthcare professionals. From current student nurses to retired professionals- but also current workers that could assist with additional shifts. This also included the preparation for the new ‘Nightingale’ temporary COVID-19 relief hospitals.
To achieve the objective,the strategy was mass reach across the country, utilising the power of broadcast formats during lockdown with an additional layer of above the line. Using the regionalisation of ITV linear, MAG up-weighted impacts in Granada and London; places that needed staff for the ‘Nightingale’ hospitals. With consumption habits changing and the country being advised to stay home, there was also an increase in weekday and daytime viewing/listening.
In addition, the messaging of the campaign was ‘Stand Up. Step Forward. Save Lives.’ We wanted to ensure where we placed this message was relevant, to create a strong, empathetic connection with the target audience. The TV creative showed the medical uniform of trained professionals within the home encapsulating a strong, emotive, but instructive message from the NHS to help support the community.
The Results:
people were recruited in the first 10 days, exceeding expected results.
staff members were overall re-recruited by the end of the campaign.
