Hard hats, hi-vis jackets, pneumatic drills – for too long, engineering had become associated with dry and dated perceptions. The result: a huge skills shortage and a narrow target audience. The Royal Academy of Engineering needed to attract potential innovators and entrepreneurs often lost to engineering well before they finish school. They wanted a campaign that would inspire 13 to 18 year-olds to see engineering in a new light and follow what they love into an engineering career.

In collaboration with EngineeringUK and industry partners, we created #ThisIsEngineering for the Royal Academy of Engineering. Aiming to inspire students, we knew that a high-profile, digitally-led advertising campaign was the way forward.

The campaign centred around the life stories of five young engineers who had turned their passions into careers, following what they love into sport, fashion, tech, design and space, proving the astounding breadth of engineering.

Rolled out across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we created eighteen pieces of content, including one hero film and one interview for all of our engineering champions. A website was also created providing further information on careers in engineering for students, teachers and parents.

CROSS-CHANNEL ACTIVITY

This second season of the campaign delved into seven passion points, including aviation, cars, disaster relief and film. Executions from this season were developed into TV commercials broadcast in prime-time slots. This yielded greatly improved results and provided us with fresh insight into our audience bracked as it evolved to accomodate gen alpha, and a whole new set of emotional needs.