DPD is the one of the UK’s leading delivery services, but was short of owner driver franchisees (ODFs) during its peak season by around 1,000. The quality of applications to become drivers was not meeting expected standards, and at the same time demand for deliveries had surged since the pandemic. Creed Communications undertook research with DPD and found that hiring needed to be more data-driven; that a campaign needed to change perceptions of being an ODF for a delivery company; that under-represented communities needed to be included in the messaging; and the quality of applicants needed to be high.

It came up with the concept of ‘The Van-Do attitude’, where no task is too little or mountain too high for DPD drivers. Focus groups and stakeholder interviews showed that a video campaign would be the best way forward, on top of which Creed also created a media plan including Meta, TikTok and Snapchat. DPD was also the first UK employer to advertise roles on Waze, the navigation app. The campaign included live dashboards, so the company could tweak things on the fly and ensure it was reaching the right audience at the right times. There were also ad vans outside competitor depots, billboard ads and optimised Google search results.

The campaign delivered impressive results, including an 81% reduction in the UK driver deficit and a significant increase in new starters. Website traffic and click-throughs rose impressively, particularly in comparison to competitors. Christmas and Olympics editions of the video campaigns have since been created.