Last week, we launched a new NHS recruitment campaign. It’s aimed at getting qualified mental health nurses to come and work at one of the five dedicated mental health trusts in the Northwest of England.
by Ben Capper
In short, it’s a video campaign, featuring the experiences of overseas mental health nurses, and the perspectives of Directors of Nursing from the various Trusts.
It also features two videos that showcase the Northwest as a place to live and work.
It launched on paid social media platforms this week, targeting mental health nurses in Sri Lanka and South Africa.
Whilst the initial engagement results look encouraging I won’t have the full picture on stats for a while. But it has given me pause to reflect on the experience of getting to this point on the project.
It has been, so far, one of the most enjoyable and enriching projects I’ve ever worked on. And I think it has had a number of components that have made it so. Such as:
A clear brief
When we first met the client, it was obvious that they’d had internal discussions and agreed on a very clear set of outputs they wanted. They put these to us, we provided a quote, they agreed, and we got on with it.
These were:
- 2 videos per Trust (one of a Mental Health Nurse, one of the Director of Nursing)
- 2 more videos highlighting why the Northwest is a great place to live, and work in mental health
Couldn’t be simpler.
There is another way of doing things of course. You can bring a totally open brief on the basis of an outcome you want to see, and allow suppliers to suggest an approach. This approach works equally well.
You ideally want to avoid the fuzzy middle ground, where you kind of know what you want, and you sort of have any idea of your outcome, but not everyone agrees, and not everyone who really needs to be involved, is.
That was not the case here, and it helped us get on and provide the right solution with absolute clarity.
Freedom for creative licence with strong decision making
But even though there was total clarity from the client on their expectations, we still were expected to bring the creativity to the challenge.
I say “we”. I mean me and my go-to videography partner: the incomparable Mr Bob Wass.
Whilst we knew what our expectations were, and what brand identity we were working within, we were never dictated to. We were able to suggest a creative approach based on our knowledge and experience within a clear framework, which is exactly what we did.
As a result of this, we decided on scripted, to-camera (from autocue) pieces from our volunteer mental health nurses and Directors of Nursing, and two pieces showcasing what’s lovely and wonderful about the Northwest, with a scripted voiceover – pieced together from the mental health nurses’ contributions themselves.
We had a lot of fun in the process, and brought our creative thinking – but always went back to our readily available client, who always gave us a clear “yes” or an equally clear “no because…”
It was the ideal blend of creativity and decisiveness.
Willing volunteers
The project was entirely dependent on having willing subjects to take part in it.
Thankfully, this was never a worry at any point in the project. Each Trust identified their nurses and Directors who took part fully in the scripting process; and all turned up on time, with a smile on their faces and warmth in their hearts. They were, to a person, a total joy to work with.
Working with nice people always makes for a great project.
Strong stakeholder management processes
I was thrilled when we got commissioned for the project. But I must admit it did let off some alarm bells.
This was because there were five different Trusts involved, plus a regional NHE England team. It had all the ingredients of a project that, if not managed carefully, could turn into a mess of competing messages, timescale clashes, logo wars, you name it.
But none of this happened. There was a central working group set up with comms professionals from each trust on, who all agreed in advance to the creative formatting and coordinated their own internal sign off processes to an agreed timescale.
We’ve all been there when you think something is signed off and you hear the dreaded words; “I’ll just share it with my manager. I’m sure they won’t have any comments….”.
We avoided this horrible scenario with the diligent work of each comms representative and the working group lead, by identifying their sign-off procedures early so we knew how to build our creative processes around them.
With everyone’s help and partnership, we delivered every single video on time and to everyone’s satisfaction.
Very rarely, when faced with such potential complexity, do projects run this smoothly; which is massive thanks for the working group’s brilliant approach to stakeholder management.
A super-fun production experience
Another reason why the project was delivered so well was the fact that it was just loads of fun to work on.
Bob and I spent many days on the road visiting new places, meeting and working with thoroughly lovely people, working hard, but having a lot of laughs along the way.
From delicious Indian sweets in Rusholme, to an incredible Mezze plate at a café in Ashton-Under-Lyme (I know – who would have thought), to the butter pies of mid Lancashire, we took in many of the flavours found across the Northwest on what down time we did have.
We also happened to be out shooting in the weeks before Christmas so we were able to get some stunning drone footage of the Peak District in the snow.
It’s a project that lives long in the memory for the brilliant people we met along the way, the beautiful and inspiring places we visited, the sights, sounds and smells we experienced. All of these little details on a shoot really add to the experience, and give you that feeling of wanting to deliver a really brilliant result.
A chance to express something dear to me…
I’m a proud native of Northwest England. I love pretty much everything about this place, from leafy Cheshire to dramatic South Cumbria, from vibrant Manchester to my beloved Liverpool; it’s a place I’d heartily recommend to everyone.
And on this project I got to get all wistful about it, by writing a couple of voiceover scripts for the main ads. It was actually pretty emotional to hear the voiceover come to life through the voices of the mental health nurses, and to hear it over Bob’s beautiful videography of the region.
Not every project is like this, and that’s fine. They will still be fun and enriching. But when it does speak to something dear to you, it can make all the difference between a good project, and a great one.
As comms pros we all work hard, and it can often feel like a slog, especially when you’re stuck in months of sign-off hell.
But sometimes, when you’ve worked on something enjoyable and successful, it’s good to share what made it so fulfilling and inspiring.
Having a subject that really matters, a clear brief, strong decision making, a trusting creative relationship, nice people and good food: that feels like a recipe for a great project to me.
Ben Capper is founder and lead consultant at grey fox communications and marketing ltd. You can say hello on Twitter at @BenCapper
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