Great work, TEAM!

The best recruiting since sliced bread.

The ethical, community-focused Southern Co-op is older than anyone on earth! It’s v ethical, and member-owned, with more than 250 community food stores and funeral homes across southern England.

BUT. Employing nearly 4,500 colleagues at head office and in the field, it struggled to recruit in-store staff.

Lightbulb

We needed to drive passive candidates to engage with the whole concept of working in the same place they normally associated with popping out for a loaf of bread, selling the paper where they normally bought the paper.

What we did

We saw lots of feedback about employees having fun in the stores, feeling they were part of a team. A team…

Cogs whirled. And we launched our campaign based around T.E.A.M - that’s Time (flexible hours to fit in around studies, school hours, part-time or full-time), Easy (to apply - that was our part), Accessible (these stores were literally round the corner, on high streets and in service stations around the region) and Making a Difference (massively important to many people - and increasingly so in the current climate - this was a truly charitable, ethical employer giving back to the community in every way.)

Snappy videos hit the target

Did it work?

We hit this in every way possible. We mounted an integrated social campaign leading to a vibrant, eye-catching landing page.

There we had action shots featuring real employees playing sports using shopping-related items instead of balls or hurdles, alongside 2-minute videos explaining what it was like to work there.

Here’s the clever stuff: we extended the campaign with a range of add-ons - like, we added our Chatbots to the application page to answer candidate questions at any time of day or night and capture contact data without needing to take staff off other work.

And our favourite thing - we added QR codes to shelf strips and stickers on actual bread wrappers leading people back to the landing page. This meant the ads were visible, instantly scannable and started long-lasting recruitment - straight out of the bread bin.