Interior Health UK Nurse Recruitment Campaign

Strategic Thinking:

Contracted by Interior Health to produce a marketing campaign designed to recruit psychiatric nurses from the UK, Communication Solutions began the process with research into UK demographics, UK recruiting market analysis, UK healthcare market analysis including research into UK advertising and health care recruitment campaigns as well as a review of UK pop culture.  We then qualified our interpretations by interviewing UK psychiatric nurses and spouses.

Creative Solutions:

Our research showed that Interior Health's main competitors for nurse recruitment were the United States and Austrailia and that their marketing focused on the benefits of a warm climate.  At the time, the most popular show on television in the UK was " A Place in the Sun" a reality-based account of people's journey to relocate outside the UK  to improve their lifestyle.  Recognizing that UK nurses have their pick of jobs in almost any UK community, we focused on a key point-of-difference -- that being the weather, climate, geographic expanse, short travel times to nearby larger cities, the "over 200 lakes within one hour's drive",  and plentiful recreational opportunities within the Interior of BC and positioned it as something already familiar to them -- A Place in the Sun.  Taking nothing for granted, we focus tested on UK residents every brand concept and message to overcome the language barriere that Canadian English is "ambiguous" at times and we followed valuable feedback before investing in creative.

Tangible Results: 

The result was a strategic and creative recruitment campaign focused on what UKers WISHED they had....warm climate, short commutes, friendly community, great lifestyle, reduced cost of living, access to recreation.  Communication Solutions produced a short video ( in PAL format for UK distribution ) "A Place in the Sun" complemented by tradeshow handouts, teaser postcards, a 4-panel  mailable brochure holding the DVD and branded ads for nursing magazines and pre-employement fair newspaper insertions.

The research and strategy behind this campaign paid off for Interior Health.  Their targetted goal of 3 UK new-hires was greatly exceeded.  Currenlty, more than 15 job applications resulting from this campaign are in process and several others have already relocated and are employed in IH mental health facilities.