ABOUT

Social adverts with big social impact

Speakers for Schools are a UK-wide charity that empowers young people from state schools and colleges to reach their potential by opening doors to life-changing and career-enhancing work experience opportunities.

But, how do you persuade a generation of savvy digital natives that work experience is worth doing?

We started by comparing insights into the habits of young people aged 16 – 15 with key findings from an independent YouGov poll we commissioned of 2,098 18-30-year-olds who recalled their work experience while in education.

We noted that:

1. Young people prioritise spending money on things that are perceived as aspirational – buying the latest stuff from shopping apps on their mobile.

2. Young adults currently in full-time work who did work experience while in education earned an additional £1,088 of annual salary per year for each additional type of work experience completed while in education.

Imagine what you could buy with that extra amount of income.

And that’s exactly the question we hoped to pose to young people with this campaign to help our youth audience see one very tangible way that they stand to benefit in the future from doing work experience in the here and now.

Our in-house Creative Team came up with a range of universally appealing purchases that an extra boost in future salary could stretch to, from fresh haircuts and dunks to new treads, hot tech and the latest tunes.

Our aim was to explicitly demonstrate what that additional £1,088 could mean to them based on the insights we had into this age demographic’s existing preferences and spending habits. Our list even included smaller indulgences in much higher multiples (870 donuts!) which served to playfully reinforce just how far the extra money could go.

To ensure that the message resonated with our youth audience, we crafted our ads to mimic the style of the shopping apps that are already so familiar to them. Each one starts with the hook of the extra money earned by doing work experience then presents an eye-catching selection of the different items that are added one by one to their pretend shopping cart.

To increase the chances that the young people viewing the ads act on what they have seen and continue their onward journey with our charity, as each ad ends, our messaging invites them ‘to check out’ our quick career personality quiz and ‘bag’ the latest work experience as it drops.