TBWALondon created a unique recruitment campaign for Connection Crew the award-winning social enterprise that works with people of all backgrounds and provides exciting jobs in crewing for festivals, events, concerts, exhibitions, construction and more. 

Most people when they hear the phrase “being headhunted” will think of big jobs in industries that value higher education. Connection Crew and TBWALondon has challenged this concept, and created a campaign that turns headhunting on its head by using mysterious cards and OOH posters with an enigmatic user journey - specifically targeting lower-income workers.  

“You’ve Been Headhunted”, is centered around Connection Crew team members being challenged to go out into the real world to find the best gig economy workers. These could be bar staff, taxi drivers, security, fast food workers or the hard-working Barista who goes the extra mile making their coffee.  

The OOH posters also containing the QR code. Having been intrigued by the campaign’s mysterious messaging, users are taken to a screen saying "you're nothing like the person we're looking for”, along with an enticing "Don't apply" button. Once hitting that, they will be presented with further negative instructions. But if they persevere and continue to click, they are rewarded with a page that says "you're persistent - I like that". The user is then welcomed, and invited to apply, or find out more about Connection Crew.

To learn more, we spoke to Duncan Brooks, a Creative at TBWA.

What was the brief?

Connection Crew are a crewing company as well as a social enterprise on a mission to place people who face barriers to work into jobs in the crewing industry. That’s setting up events and festivals amongst other things – they’ve recently worked at the BAFTA awards, the Coronation, Creamfields and Glastonbury. After some recent growth, they came to TBWA asking for a recruitment campaign to find new workers from all walks of life. After some strategic back-and-forth, we decided that 100 new recruits was the aim.

How did the initial pitch/brainstorming phase go?

There was an insight involved. We knew that Brexit and Covid shrank the UK’s workforce, so it’s been tougher for crewing companies to recruit. From there, we made the leap that speaking to people already in work should be more promising.

What was the process behind ideating the concept?

When we looked into the UK’s minimum-wage workforce, we found it holds a pretty staggering 1.6 million workers. My own experience of working in that world for years, was that there’s few opportunities to progress. You get stuck, and it’s tough to get a break.

That meant another leap, that if we speak to people who feel undervalued and unappreciated who work for minimum-wage, we can tell them of the opportunities for progression and links to the creative industries that crewing can offer. 
Suddenly, we had our audience and strategy. The idea to headhunt them as if they were blue-chip talent, came from there.

What was the production process like?

To headhunt people working for minimum-wage, we decided to have the current members of Connection Crew to hand out business cards to bar staff, waiting staff, retail workers, delivery riders who’ve impressed them. The cards would say our idea - ‘You’ve been headhunted.’ Each would carry a QR code, leading the would-be crew member to an application page for the job.

We knew cut-through would be important when it came to a barista say, remembering to retrieve the card from their pocket at the end of their shift, and checking out the application. For this, we wanted to subvert the design ruts of the recruitment sector – who hand out some pretty sterile, cold, lifeless cards. So our designer, Luke, created a range of original designs to stick in minds.

He collided two inspirations – heavy metal, with the bubblegummy world of teddybears and lovehearts. And I can safely say, no one’s mistaking those for a dull headhunter’s card.

What was the biggest challenge during production? How did you overcome it?

With no real budget for the job, we had to find a way to host the application process while keeping costs low. The idea was born for Connection Crew to grant us access to their own online platform – Team Tailor – as the landing page for workers applying from their Headhunted cards. 

The other use of pre-existing ‘assets’, was in finding a way to distribute Headhunted cards to the relevant people. The client had once told us that their best recruitment asset was the crew themselves – word of mouth, in other words. Remembering that, we made the leap of  turning the crew into headhunters, by arming them with the cards. After all, no one’s better placed to recognise the skills needed to thrive in crewing, than those who already do.

What is one funny or notable thing that happened during production?

I remember a meeting where someone almost thought aloud, “but…what about the people who don’t get a Headhunted card?” It was a fair old point. We ended up adapting executing the idea as an out-of-home campaign, which would intrigue viewers into scanning the on-screen QR code by telling them ‘You HAVEN’T been headhunted’. Eventually, their persistence would be rewarded, and they’d be invited to apply. 

What’s the main message of this project and why does it matter?

For me, it has an emotional intelligence at its heart. It reminds people of their worth at a time when they can be stuck in a rut through no fault of their own, and rewards it.

What do you hope it achieves for the brand?

Fundamentally, it’s a recruitment campaign. And fundamentally, it’s for a client who are a social enterprise. The more growth they achieve through capably crewing bigger events, the more people they can employ and help. Being from the West Country, I know that the problems faced by the people it helps are far from exclusive to London – so it’d be great to see Connection Crew grow nationally. 

Credit list for the work?

Brand: Connection Crew CIC

Client name: Connection Crew: Camilla Marcus-Dew/Charlotte Scotland

Creative agency: TBWA London

Creative director: Andy Jex

Creatives: Dan Kenny/Duncan Brooks

Copywriter - Jemma Burgess 

Senior Designer - Luke McClure 

Art Director - Gémina Gil Flores 

Business Director: Fiona Wilson 

Media agency: Talon Outdoor