Key Takeaways

• The Department of Education was keen to drive more people to consider a teaching career.
• They partnered with Hearst to run a print and digital campaign showcasing how teachers have shaped peoples’ lives.
• 27% said that they would consider a career in teaching, while 13% registered at the Get into Teaching website.

One page summary

Client Quote

“Hearst delivered a holistic, insightful and diverse campaign using a strategic range of channels and publications to reach our target audiences. Outstanding account and project management made for a fun and thorough partnership, whilst passionate editorial helped to deliver engaging and creative content. Hearst used their unique tone of voice to shine a light on a career in teaching and its benefits to their audience, and built consideration of teaching as a career option through regular prompts across the breadth of the campaign. An absolute pleasure of a campaign to work on!”

Louis DaSliva, Partnerships Campaign Manager, Department for Education

The Challenge

The decision to teach is often littered with barriers that communications can help to overcome, for example 20% of people do not teach due to encountering negative opinions from friends and family. Teachers also have a huge influence on those that are considering a teaching career. The ATL campaign Teaching Shapes Lives’ and the campaign idea of ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’ remained an important part of the overall strategy, but the Department for Education were keen to drive increased relevance and positivity, translating desire to teach into action, pulling people through to registration.

The Plan/Execution

Hearst’s ‘Real Influencer Network’ was designed to reach an audience who saw work not just as a means of income but as a source of purpose and meaning. The campaign was brought to life through tailored executions in Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Digital Spy, Men’s Health and Red across three themes:

• Back to school – showcasing the true influence and creativity of teachers in real environments
• The teacher who… – building on the emotional connection readers have with Editors to reveal how teachers have shaped their success.
• Why I teach… prove that we all have something to offer teaching and how teachers made the switch and the impact it has made on their lives.

The ‘Back to School’ content strand was led by celebrity influencer videos across Cosmo (Maya Jama), ELLE (Clara Amfo), Men’s Health (Gareth Thomas) and Digital Spy (Naomie Ackie). The videos were distributed socially, built for IGTV and supported by an interview with the celebrity in article format.

Print activity featured a thank you letter series from the Editors to their teachers, as well as interviews with inspirational teachers. Print advertorials were placed within the magazine career sections for maximum impact and engagement. Socially led video content supported the print features. The campaign activity had to be paused due to Covid-19, but was adapted and restarted.

Results

Post-campaign research showed:

•  51% took a direct action as a result of seeing the campaign – including 13% immediately registering at the Get into Teaching website.
•  5000 clicks to the client’s website from the digital articles.
• 27% of all respondents said that they would consider a career in teaching, with a further 24% claiming they ‘might’ consider it.
•  Among 18–34s who recalled the activity, consideration of teaching as a career rose from 31% to 41% and likelihood to recommend to friends or family rose from 28% to 41%.

Furthermore, the content achieved high levels of engagement:

• Branded videos achieved a social reach of 2.35M with an average VCR of 20% Vs 12-18% benchmark.
• The Snapchat run of channel activity achieved an average screen time of 2.09 Vs 1.19 benchmark.
• Digital display activity overachieved by 118% against guaranteed ad impressions achieving an average CTR of 0.53% Vs 0.26% benchmark.
• Engagement with the campaign was significant, with over 620 positive comments, over 20,000 positive reactions, 2000 shares and over 4500 saves.