HAMPSHIRE & ISLE OF WIGHT POLICE

Most people think they know what policing looks like.

The uniform. The blue lights. The badge.

But that picture leaves a lot of people out, especially those who have never seen someone like them in the role.

Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary wanted to change who sees policing as a career for them. So we stopped talking about the job and started showing the people doing it.

The challenge

HIOW wanted to be seen as an employer of choice for diverse talent. They wanted more applications from groups underrepresented in policing, including Black and ethnic minority candidates and the LGBT+ community, aged 18 to 45 across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

For a lot of those people, the question isn’t “what does a police officer do?” It’s:

Would I fit in?

Is there anyone like me there?

Would I be accepted for who I am?

What is it actually like, day to day?

Policing content is everywhere, and most of it looks the same. To stand out, the campaign needed to feel personal, not procedural.

The approach

We took the force’s existing Policing Plus programme and turned it into a full messaging framework: “It’s Policing, Plus…”

Policing, plus community. Plus pride. Plus teamwork, wellbeing, recognition and giving back. These are the parts of the role that rarely make it into recruitment ads.

Then we built three video concepts so the campaign never felt repetitive:

Interviews: officers talking honestly about belonging, impact and their own route in.

Show & Tell: an officer brings in an object that means something to them and tells the story behind it.

Service Sketches: an officer draws a defining moment from their career while talking it through, then reveals the finished sketch at the end.

For phase one we delivered seven 60-second videos, two short snippets and four statics. They ran across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok for 12 weeks. Meta let us geo-target and drive clicks. TikTok helped us reach younger, more diverse audiences at volume.

The results

In 12 weeks, the campaign delivered:

2.7 million impressions, against a target of just over 1 million

32,634 clicks, against a target of 7,226

70% of clicks from 18 to 24 year olds

A 1.58% average click-through rate, against platform benchmarks of 0.3% to 1.3%

A 19.14% average view-through rate, against benchmarks of 5% to 10%

17,097 visitors to the Hampshire Police careers site during the campaign

Which is A 97% increase in traffic to the careers website

So the age group most forces struggle to reach weren't t just watching. They were clicking through to find out more.

And the strongest-performing creative?

Holly’s interview. It’s a full 60 seconds of an officer talking openly about who she is, what she’s had to overcome and how the role has helped her grow. It reached the most people and held attention the longest, with view-through rates of up to 36% on Instagram.

Why it worked

Because people don’t apply to a uniform. They apply to people they can picture themselves working alongside.

The 60-second stories beat the shorter snippets and statics every time. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. A career is a big decision, and people wanted enough information and enough honesty to actually make it.

The best performers all followed the same shape: start with something personal, explain the role, then show what’s possible. Representation did the rest. When people saw someone who looked like them, sounded like them or had been through what they had, they stayed, they clicked and they commented. As one viewer put it: “I already wanted to join the police, now I want to join even more.”

It’s Policing, Plus… worked because it didn’t sell policing. It showed the people in it.

What came next

Phase one gave us a clear playbook: lead with long-form, single-voice stories, open with something personal, and save shorter content for people who already know the opportunity.

So, we went back to Hampshire & Isle of Wight with exactly that. A new series of Show & Tells with Amela, Jules, Karen, Andrea and Daniel, longer “Journey” films following officers’ routes into the role, and shorter nurture content to re-engage people who had already watched.

To see the bank of show and tell content from the campaign go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xgtb7DN1h0&list=PLYp_8LhPBHFo

Want an attraction campaign that helps the people you’re missing see themselves in the role? Let’s talk.