B&Q has a strong consumer brand, with customers associating it with the famous orange aprons and home DIY answers. But its employer brand was not as well known, and it wanted to showcase the benefits offered, learning and development, and flexibility options, alongside a sense of belonging and its position on diversity and inclusion. To learn more, ThirtyThree listened to employees’ inspiring stories. This would show existing employees and potential recruits how it feels to work there so they would choose B&Q over anywhere else.

B&Q spoke to many colleagues and visited stores, engaging with their employee networks on gender equality, ethnicity, ability, pride and armed forces representatives. ThirtyThree then took this research and came up with five stories for five films to illustrate what everyday life is like for B&Q’s diverse workforce. To showcase its benefits offer, however, it decided to take a different approach – because there were more than 12 independent benefits, print and social seemed the better way to go. Across everything, it wanted to tie the consumer brand of ‘Build a Life’ and the current employer brand of ‘Together We Can’. Both approaches came together under the umbrella of ‘Belong at B&Q’.

Print and digital ads showed the elements that make the difference for employees at B&Q, such as flexible working options and apprenticeship routes, all featuring existing employees. The films took inspiration from employee stories of passionate and diverse workers at the business. Extra stories were shared in text format, and housed on a dedicated ‘Belong’ page on the careers site. The impact has been impressive: from a huge increase in clicks year-on-year, a strong rise in applications, and high social media engagement.