In 2023, Irish Distillers approached Atomic agency with a challenge. While brands such as Jameson Whiskey and Pernod Ricard were well known with consumers, potential candidates were confused about the employer brand. The company needed to highlight the diverse range of roles and locations on offer. In order to do this, Irish Distillers and Atomic came up with a four-phase approach made up of research, stakeholder engagement and multi-layered content.

The research phase included a deep dive into the history of the company, established in 1789. Meetings with senior leadership allowed the agency to soak up its culture and what makes the workplace tick. In the second phase, the aim was to define what makes the Irish Distillers brand stand apart, and this could be done through four brand pillars: innovation, inspired by heritage; genuinely sound; carve your career; and empowered by purpose. From this, they devised the core message of ‘share our spirit, shape your future’, showing that every employee’s role is essential and giving candidates a compelling reason to join this journey.

With the concept nailed down, Atomic and Irish Distillers looked at the candidate journey to pinpoint opportunities for impact and created strategic assets and toolkits to achieve this. Assets included blogs, social posts, videos and more with the Irish Distillers brand front and centre. The campaign ran across the careers site and social channels and employees had access to advocacy tools via Canva, LinkedIn banners and other graphics. The website garnered almost 10,000 clicks after the campaign was launched and cost-per-clicks has been dramatically reduced, with the company smashing its KPIs for engagement.