After the pandemic, the airline industry lost almost 40% of its staff, and easyJet needed to recruit around 2,000 new cabin crew in the UK and Europe ahead of its competitor airlines. To do this, it needed to enhance its brand equity and build on its new employer value proposition of ‘Make it EasyJet’. It also wanted to attract more men and people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds into cabin crew roles.

Tonic agency supported easyJet to gauge its brand impact across different media channels, to pinpoint target audiences and understand their motivations, and to analyse past campaigns to optimise its new strategy. This research included leadership interviews, focus groups, research into external audience motivations, and then the creation of ‘personas’. It revealed that easyJet stood out as a brand for job stability, career growth and its ‘Orange Spirit’. The creative idea needed to bring together these compelling elements to encapsulate the joy of travelling and put cabin crew in the spotlight.

The creative in the campaign zooms in on “unforgettable moments” in cabin crew careers such as their first flight or celebrating a great team they worked with. It highlighted the diversity of easyJet teams, breaking gender stereotypes and showing a career that can lead to a new adventure. There was a multi-channel approach to the campaign, even using an augmented reality filter so people could imagine themselves as cabin crew. It led to more than 14,000 applications, with 6,300 of those from men. Application to hire time was reduced, and media spend lowered compared to previous years.