Who cares what students think?
Well actually, we all should. Graduates are not a homogeneous group and their perceptions and priorities change over time. Too many employers pump out graduate communications based on assumptions rather than genuine understanding and they pay for it in poor results and high costs.
Each year, the High Fliers Survey asks students to assess the quality of the recruitment advertising and communications produced by major graduate employers.
In 2002, Ford's graduate brochure had come 16th .
When we started working with the Ford graduate team, we began by finding out more about our target audience. A brisk yet detailed research programme allowed us to get under the skin of the Ford culture and to understand the kind of students we were trying to recruit. As well as exploring their preferences and motivations with attitude research, we tested specific reactions to a range of alternative creative approaches.
By 2003, Ford was topping the High Fliers Survey with a brochure and advertising campaign called
Natural Passion. This was no fluke. Even at initial concept stage,
Natural Passion was scoring straight tens in the focus groups, so we knew we were on to a winner. For us, those High Fliers Survey results reinforce the link between objective research-based insights and truly effective creativity.
