For the love of flying

In a difficult and volatile market, easyJet is one of the most stable airlines in the industry, opening new bases and operating over 700 routes across more than 30 European countries.

Employing over 2,500 Pilots and 6,500 cabin crew they fly over 80 million passengers their favourite destinations each year.

And, for their annual recruitment season, SMRS was challenged to recruit 190 Pilots and 2,300 cabin crew members to their European bases.

Whilst easyJet have a fantastic reputation in certain countries, like the UK, in some of their European bases, there is the opportunity to improve current perceptions.

In particular, in places like Germany, where their size and scale is relatively unknown and they’re not considered to be on a par with national competitors such as Lufthansa.

Portugal and Holland also favour national airlines such as TAP and KLM and, in all of these locations, there’s a misperception that as a ‘budget airline’ easyJet aren’t particularly aspirational as a career choice.

Strategy

Our aim was to develop an approach that hit multiple touch points and formed a truly integrated and comprehensive attraction strategy. One that was aligned to easyJet’s business needs and addressed 4 core areas.

Agility

By this we mean the ability to react to new needs, quotas and breaking news at the drop of a hat. To rapidly change channels if necessary and dial up or down attraction activity across Europe. Responding to weekly reports we needed the agility to quickly drive applications to assessment centres when and where necessary.

With new bases and routes announced and events such as the collapse of Air Berlin or Monarch – lightning-speed, real-time reactions were required.

Diverse skills

Recruiting such huge numbers of cabin crew, especially to areas like Luton and Gatwick in the UK had exhausted the
local talent pool, due to the fact that cabin crew need to live 90 minutes or closer to the base.

So, we researched other markets to appeal to candidates with transferable skills and targeted the hospitality, retail and customer service sectors – opening easyJet up to a whole new audience.

Profile

Our marketing strategy focused on developing easyJet’s profile as a destination employer with new audiences or those who previously wouldn’t have considered them. Content addressed misconceptions, debunked myths and enforced why easyJet is such a great place to work.

We spoke to Pilots on easyJet’s Type Rated Sponsorship Scheme to understand their journey and remove worries about training costs. We used ambassadorial content from a Portuguese Pilot to reassure other Portuguese Pilots about easyJet’s credentials. And we showed people what a day in the life of Cabin Crew members is actually like before they discounted it.

Messaging

As we increased our understanding of the different nuances and perceptions of easyJet as an employer, across Europe, it became clear that a ‘one size fits all’ approach wouldn’t cut it anymore.

So, we developed tailored messaging to target and speak specifically to a range of different audiences. And through researching external market drivers and speaking with recruitment managers in Germany and current easyJet captains, we gained a true understanding of market conditions, why pilots and cabin crew members decide to work for easyJet and, importantly, stay.

For the love of flying

This over-arching campaign line was at the heart of our attraction campaign and alluded to the fact that captains, first officers and cabin crew will have chosen their career originally because they love aviation, and everything about it – from the freedom and opportunity to travel, to the technology and sheer kudos – this simple, uncomplicated love of flying unites everyone.

It also has the ability to be nuanced to describe the other things in life that are important to you, wherever you live in the world. Things that easyJet also love, value highly and offer. Bespoke messages were then created under this overarching theme for key countries, based on our insight and we used image variations to test what worked best with our audiences.

Media channels

We continued to invest in core industry jobs boards, but our focus was on digital channels which would allow us to move budgets, optimise where needed and switch on/off based on changes in demands.

Google PPC

We used highly targeted adwords optimised against what relevant candidates were searching for. We also targeted retail and hospitality audiences to expand our reach for cabin crew.

Indeed

We achieved great coverage across Europe to sponsored hot spot jobs. We were able to drive applications to assessment centres very quickly, change the budget every day if necessary and drive traffic where it was needed – from Amsterdam to Berlin to Luton.

Programmatic

We fed in historical insight from previous campaigns based on audience behaviours and also website analytics to target the right people. We also used a remarketing algorithm to deliver messages to those who had shown interest but not applied, to drive that final conversion.

Facebook

We used a mix of different ad formats with direct response CTAs to drive candidates directly to relevant roles on the website. Pilot targeting had to be specific because of the skills needed but Cabin Crew was opened out into retail, customer service and hospitality because of their relevant skills.

News page on the careers site

We created a new section on the careers site to house easyJet news content and be used as a base to post out information via all of easyJet’s channels. We made it CMS compatible allowing easyJet to regularly post updates in relation to key events.

This page transformed the site into a constant source of information and content for users.

To date, we’ve had over 133K visits to this news section of the careers site.

Social amplification

easyJet had a recruitment specific Facebook page and were investing a large amount of time sharing content. The problem was that with a small number of followers, the organic content they were posting wasn’t getting the exposure it needed to have any significant impact.

To help easyJet expand their reach, we developed a Facebook social amplification campaign to build easyJet’s followers, drive out rich content to relevant candidates and enable us to build a talent pool of engaged users.

We analysed content to use only what would engage people. We built a schedule of activity. We advised on additional content that easyJet could create in house. We used all the rich media (videos and quizzes) on the careers site and re-purposed it to create engaging posts. And we pushed content out to Cabin Crew and Pilots across Europe as well as people in the retail, hospitality and customer service sectors with transferable skills.

Over the first two months, content was pushed out to generate increased interest in easyJet. After this initial two months we retargeted those who had shown a greater interest with new messaging and a stronger CTA, encouraging people to follow easyJet. To date, we’ve achieved over 219k social post engagements from paid for activity and grown Facebook followers by over 3000%. What’s more as brand awareness increased, thanks to our marketing plan, we generated over 401 completed applications from activity that didn’t even have a direct recruitment message attached to it.

This demonstrates the power that good content can have, both on getting people to engage with us, as well as on their job decision process. This has built easyJet’s talent pool and opened up their opportunities to even more people.

easyJet’s Glassdoor profile

After a thorough review of easyJet’s Glassdoor profile analytics we refreshed the page in line with the core audience and the information they wanted to see.

We worked with easyJet to identify the most relevant content for their various audiences and built specific pages for each group. We used video from their careers site to bring their Glassdoor profile to life.

We also drew up a list of key competitors to target at key crisis points – like when they’re having cabin crew strikes. And we supported easyJet to post regular updates on everything from business news to recruitment events and assessment days. All of which linked to our newly developed news page on the careers site.

This complete refresh made Glassdoor a much more effective brand platform for easyJet:

• We saw Glassdoor average monthly visits rise to over 20,000 regularly with a peak of 60,000 (this is a 64% increase from the previous year).
• We saw over 2,700 apply starts
• We grew the Glassdoor rating from 3.8 to 4.2 at peak
• This led to easyJet featuring in the Glassdoor Best Places To Work awards
• We also saw the increased levels of engagement help get easyJet’s CEO the highest rated of the year.

Here’s how the campaign flew

Pilots:

• 206 projected
• 388 hired

Cabin crew:

• 1,180 projected
• 2,025 hired

Website applications:

• 42,000+ cabin crew
• 2,800+ pilots

Social:

• 1,150% increase in Facebook followers (up from 1,200 to 15,000)
• 219k social post engagements from paid activity

Glassdoor:

• 20,000+ average monthly visits (up 64% from the previous year)
• 4.2 rating at its peak
• Featured in the Glassdoor Best Places To Work awards
• Supported CEO to become the highest rated

Digital:

• 401 completed applications from non-recruitment activity
• 35k+ video views – watching over 75% of the video
• 88% reduction in overall cost per application from trackable applications