How Pablo and Unlimited Supported the Met Police's Transformation and Recruitment Drive

How do you shift public perceptions of the Metropolitan Police Service (The Met) and also encourage people to consider a career in policing? Appeal to the nation’s desire for change.

Fittingly, given the alteration to the UK government, this is what Pablo and Unlimited have sought to achieve with their ‘Change Needs You’ recruitment campaign which calls on Londoners eager to make a positive difference.

The Met, which is experiencing its lowest staffing levels in 10 years, not only requires more Police constables but also wishes to recruit people who want to change society and themselves for the better.

Drawing on research from Unlimited’s Human Understanding Lab, which identified a significant pool of Londoners that have the ‘energy and desire’ to drive for change, the two agencies crafted a stirring and emotional campaign to reflect the diverse and challenging aspects of police work. 

By focusing on values of courage, respect, and empathy, the work aims to shine a light on the varied skills and strengths it takes to be a police officer so that Londoners will be more likely to envision themselves in the role.

With 60 and 30-second spots, OOH, social and radio iterations, the campaign also ensures authenticity by featuring real officers whose daily experiences and diverse backgrounds enrich the narrative, creating a realistic and relatable portrayal of the job. 13 real Police Constables took part in the recruitment drive, including a former bus driver, a Big Brother finalist, a twin and former cabin crew member, who are all currently serving communities.

To uncover more information about the work Pablo and Unlimited have pioneered for the Met Police since winning the account in January 2024, we caught up with the Pablo team for a Q&A.

What was the original brief behind the campaign?

Mark Sng, chief strategy officer, Pablo London: With The Met service facing its lowest staffing levels in a decade, the brief was to increase applications to the Met's recruitment process. However, with the Casey report findings in regards to the diversity of the Met, our task would be to appeal to female and ethnic minority applicants. 

Sir Mark Rowley [Commissioner of Police of the Met] expressed the need to act quickly and effectively to build a modern police service London deserves: “We must change for our communities and we must change for our officers and staff who serve them”.

Our opportunity was to attract the right people to become agents of progress from within the Met - but also to signal wider change to the general public. No easy task.

Our answer was to be direct with what the Met is trying to achieve. Change for the communities they serve. Change for the applicants who’ll find a challenging but rewarding career in the Met. And change within the Met itself.

Why do you feel ‘Change Needs You’ stands out as a Police recruitment campaign?

Will Bingham, creative group head, Pablo London: The Met wants to change. So we needed a message that was bigger than just asking people to sign up. We needed something that would convince people they can be part of that change, in the community and the organisation as a whole.

Job recruitment campaigns can often be quite functional. Using a raw, more filmic style to put viewers into the action, we tried to create a stirring and emotional film, reflecting the diversity of the role, from first response to local community work; something that showed off the true excitement of the job but also the gritty reality. After all, it’s not just about application numbers. Far from it, this campaign is specifically designed to attract and motivate the right people with the right values (courage, respect, and empathy), to join up and help change things for the better.

The campaign was postponed due to the general election. Did this change anything about the work?

Emma Banks, planning director, TMW Unlimited: The campaign launch of 'Change Needs You' was ready to air at the end of May but was postponed due to the general election announcement putting a pause on comms whilst we awaited the newly elected government. Any shared reference to ‘Change’ during the election was entirely coincidental!

How did you use Unlimited's research to guide the resulting campaign?

Emma Banks: This is a truly important campaign in a very challenging context for The Met. Rich and robust insight was therefore critical throughout the process from start to finish. 

A bespoke public opinion survey told us there was a big pool of Londoners who had the energy and appetite for driving positive change, a sentiment reinforced in focus groups. We just needed to convince them that the Met is an exciting opportunity to drive that change; for themselves, for their communities and within the organisation itself.

In-depth internal qualitative research we found that by shining a light on the rich and varied skills and strengths it takes to be a police officer, those Londoners were more likely to see themselves in the role; empathy, respect, resilience, courage are all values that tally with a fundamental desire to change things for the better.

To optimise the creative work we consulted behavioural scientists to hone our messaging, ran focus groups internally and externally and ran neuroscientific pre-testing to make sure our work was hitting all the right marks.

How did you choose the real police officers that featured in the campaign?

Victoria Daltrey, creative group head, Pablo London: If we were going to make something authentic and reflective of a more modern Met, enlisting real officers was a no-brainer. That said, finding a diverse number of police constables who were willing and confident to appear in advertising wasn’t easy.

It was down to the hard work of The Met marketing team to reach out and help uncover officers who were passionate about being part of the project.

Filming also had to fit around their work schedule which added further complications to an already tricky brief. Thankfully, we were able to feature thirteen constables, including a former bus driver, a former cabin crew member and a Big Brother finalist. Aside from the latter, many of them had never done anything like this before. So for that reason, we made every effort to cast them in scenes they are used to performing in their job, requiring little, if any, acting. What you see is what they do, day in and day out.

They were all brilliant to work with and had really interesting stories to tell. Many of their insights and experiences were developed into the script. And when it came to shooting the action, in many cases, they were directing us on how to make it as authentic as possible.