Client
SThree
Background
SThree needed a campaign to grow its pool of high-skilled STEM specialists. The copy was largely written already; my role was to translate it into creative executions and develop an art direction that challenged the brand without moving too far from its identity.
Approach
The copy felt gimmicky in execution: more like something a high-skilled STEM professional would scroll past than a message actually meant for them. I brought that back as an open-ended question of what this audience actually needs to hear, which started a target audience research with an external research partner. One key insight was that STEM professionals don't necessarily see themselves as "STEM professionals", but as life sciences professionals, IT specialists, engineers, etc. That meant the creative needed to use the language they actually use to describe their own careers, ambitions and decisions.
Outcome
The thinking resulted in four creative routes: Specialists, Opportunities, Conversation and Evergreen. Evergreen focuses on individual STEM specialisms and acts as the final step before application, based on the audience research. Motion became a central part of the art direction from the start. Shuffling vacany cards, rotary job titles, moving icons for each industry, sticky impact stats and SThree's 3D kaleidoscope formed the basis for each route. For the Conversation route, I used in-app and notification language, pill tags and chat bubbles to make the campaign feel more like content than advertising. This was designed around a simple insight: this audience scrolls past anything that immediately reads as a recruitment ad. I set the art direction and 24 unique ad assets, then directed another designer to create the 9 formats of those assets to work on Youtube, META, Display and Linkedin.
