Public transportation

How do you recruit bus drivers when the people you need are not looking?

By finding people who already do the hard part of the job and showing them what the role means to their community. For First West of England, Route planned a video-led campaign across on-demand and addressable TV, social, radio and search, held to the areas around each depot. It met the region's driver target for 2023 and won Best Integrated Paid Media Campaign at the UK Paid Media Awards 2024.

WinnerBest Integrated Paid Media Campaign, UK Paid Media Awards 2024

WinnerBest Use of Video, Northern Digital Awards 2024, with MHD Partnership, Cravens and Woven Films

+120%Applications on First's previous recruitment activity over a comparable period

85,000Low-income households reached with the film through Sky AdSmart

Client

First West of England

Campaign

Driver recruitment, Connecting Communities

Channels

BVOD, Sky AdSmart, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Meta, digital display, gym screens, radio, Google search

Campaign period

December 2022 to April 2023

Three frames from the First Bus driver recruitment film on a navy panel, a driver's hands on the wheel in a bus cab, an older passenger holding a bouquet of red and white flowers, and a First West of England double-decker in a red bus lane beside queuing traffic. — Frames from Connecting Communities, the film at the centre of the campaign.

The brief

In 2022 a national shortage of bus drivers reached First Bus's West of England network, as well-paid HGV jobs drew drivers away and some services were reduced. Job boards had not been bringing in enough applicants. First West of England asked us to plan the paid media for a recruitment drive across Bristol, Bath, Weston-super-Mare and Wells, with a target for new drivers in 2023 and an approach other First regions could follow.

What we planned

We started with who could do the job, not who was already looking for one. Driving a bus is a public-facing role, so we planned for people working in hospitality and retail, school leavers and people who had recently retired early, all living within five miles of a depot, the distance First Bus's research showed candidates would travel.

Video sat at the centre, because a short film shows what the job means to a community in a way a job advert cannot. The 30-second film ran on ITVX, All 4 and Sky Go, and through Sky AdSmart to 85,000 low-income households in the catchment. Ten-second edits ran on YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and screens in budget gyms, with digital display held to a list of trusted local and national news sites.

The 30-second campaign film, in its square cut for social.

How it ran

Every execution named the place it was recruiting for. Because Meta restricts targeting for job adverts, we used it to retarget people who had already seen the film. Paid search picked up people looking for local driving jobs and sent them to a West of England recruitment page built for the campaign, so applicants used the regional route rather than a national one. Commercial radio with the tightest transmission around the area added frequency at low cost. The film ran in bursts from late December 2022 to early April 2023.

What the reporting showed

Reporting by burst gave First a clear read. Visits to the recruitment page rose sharply whenever the film was live, against an opening burst that ran without it, confirming video as the core of the mix and giving the region a model to share.

Outcome

What First West of England got from it

Applications rose 120% on First's previous recruitment activity over a comparable period. First West of England met its driver target for 2023, the quickest First Bus region to do so, and services reduced during the shortage were restored. The film, Connecting Communities, won Best Use of Video at the Northern Digital Awards 2024, shared with MHD Partnership, Cravens and Woven Films.

How we plan media

Circumstances beyond our control have meant that this has been a critical and highly pressured time for First Bus and public transport companies in general. Recruitment strategy needed a re-think to be successful and Route delivered a smart and video focused media execution using a range of channels, some of which we'd never used before, to deliver the results we needed and help get us back on track.

Sarah WallbridgeHead of Marketing, First West of England