NHS Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals Trust (HEY)

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Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals Trust (HEY) approached us with a brief to create an eye-catching, thought provoking campaign that would do two things: recruit and retain more staff

Hull's famously humble and self-depreciating. Ask anyone who's ridiculously talented and from Hull how good they are and they'll probably say, "Er, I'm alright."

Of course, we wanted to shout about the things you'd expect from the NHS: compassion, respect, inclusion, high quality care. But we also wanted to do something that hadn't been done before in the NHS.

We recognised early on the staff at the Trust would be the focus of a bold and striking – and very 'Hull' campaign.

We wanted to capture their extraordinary day-to-day lives in an informal and honest style and use this throughout the campaign.

Linking all this back to Hull, the city that supports them, inspires them and trains them, addressing some of the preconceived negatives along the way, was an important piece of the puzzle.

We came up with a clean and simple identity, using a modern block typeface with just the right amount of friendliness.

This graphical approach helped bring the tone, the personality and photography style to life. All with a dramatic, and clever use of copy which opens with a bold and striking statement and finishes with the payoff line, that makes you think twice.

The campaign received unanimous approval within the Trust, and has been described as the best NHS recruitment campaign in the UK.

So far, 120 (and counting) third-year students out of a total 160 have signed up. Compared to 67 intakes last year from the same catchment group.

In our first month, the website had over 6,936 visits. And our total social media reach over the same time was 92,767.

To get the message out, we came up with a plan that covered pretty much everything. Web, social media, events, PR, videos, guerrilla marketing... you name it, we did it:

- Created printed materials, external billboards, email campaigns, video content, recruitment ads and a social campaign that directed traffic to a new website

- Supported all university recruitment events with a new strategy and initiative (Our Promise) to ensure as many people as possible were 'signed upon the day, or as quickly as possible.

- Planned, created and publicised the Remarkable People, Extraordinary Place launch event at Hull Royal Infirmary. We welcomed new recruits, introduced potential recruits to the team, and told existing staff about the opportunities to progress.

"This, without doubt, is the most intelligent, inventive and creative campaign I've seen anywhere within the NHS. Your team got an instant grasp of the situation and returned with a strategy that went above and beyond anything we could have hoped for. "Your approach was met with wholesale approval within the Trust, and has been designed to reach each and every audience we outlined." - David Withers, Head of Education at HEY NHS