We helped Police take recruitment to a new platform with a podcast series that balances story-driven inspiration and career path information.
Attracting new staff will always be important to large organisations like New Zealand Police. It was a particular focus as the unemployment rate in Aotearoa reached its lowest levels in decades, and businesses across the country were competing even harder for the attention of people with the right experience and aptitude. With a growing number of people listening to podcasts, NZ Police approached us for help creating an audio series to give an insight into different Police roles and help people recognise themselves as future police officers.
From concept development right through to production and promotion, we created Offbeat — a podcast exploring the many ways to find your own rhythm in a career with New Zealand Police. Shirking the obvious route of a recorded sit down Q&A about particular roles, we crafted a show that teeters on the line between story-driven inspiration and career path information.
Each of the six episodes highlights a specific role through one person’s own career journey and experiences on the job, diving into their motivations, interests, and skills. Personal stories of career pivots, progressions, realities and rewards help listeners identify with Police careers and imagine a different path for themselves. A focus on some lesser-known roles expands perceptions of what it’s like to be in Police, going far beyond uniforms and sirens to discover worlds of roping out of helicopters, searching for missing people, high stakes communication, and getting into granular detail to solve complex crimes to name a few.
Offbeat’s launch was supported by out-of-home print media, digital ads, and other marketing assets created by Wrestler. The design of this promotional campaign leveraged the same human-centred philosophy as the series itself, celebrating the people behind the work and piquing interest in the huge variety a career with New Zealand Police can bring.
Released at the end of July 2023, listenership stats are still rolling in but there were more than 7,000 downloads of Offbeat in its first week. We’ve designed the series so listeners will come away feeling like they’ve had an entertaining conversation that opens their eyes to a whole new line of work in a way that just isn’t possible through a short video or webpage. Listen now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
