Teach First is a charity working to end educational inequality. It finds and develops great people to become inspirational leaders in the classroom, in schools and across all sectors of the economy. However, England is currently facing a teacher recruitment crisis that will have a long-term impact on children’s education – unfairly impacting on low-income communities – and Teach First is not immune to this. Despite having a well-established graduate recruitment brand, research revealed widespread misperceptions of the Teach First brand, programme and purpose. Teach First wanted a campaign that would counter this and increase both the quality and number of applications it received for its Leadership Development Programme.
It was all about making a meaningful, can’t miss contribution. The campaign was innovative, digitally-led and content-driven, designed to communicate Teach First’s mission, the opportunity of leadership and the challenge of teaching in schools in some of the UK’s most deprived areas. The strategy was designed to appeal to those who had never considered teaching as a career option.
My role was to create, develop and design the whole campaign. From art directing flagship films and photoshoots, to brochures, posters and developing a social campaign that introduced new formats like Facebook Canvas, Instagram stories and polls for deeper engagement. Both organic and paid content targeted audiences based on their personal career motivations. I also created a mobile installation for pop-up events. The lockers were dressed with props and housed a digital, multiple choice career tool with advice and stories from existing trainees.
Results
The campaign not only achieved the original objectives of attracting more, higher quality potential teachers, it had a halo effect on general brand awareness.
Year-on-year increase in the number of those people going on to apply.
11% increase in the number of people being made an offer following assessment centre.
10% increase in website visitors, showing an increase in awareness and desirability of Teach First.
4/100 in the times top 100 graduate employers and awarded ‘best advert’ by students.
3 golds and the grand prix at the employer brand management awards.
