BT needed more female representation in its business because its mission is to create products and services that are inclusive by design. It had a long-term goal to recruit, retain and develop more women across its business functions and brands, from early careers to senior leaders. The company chose video because it wanted to increase the visibility of the women that work there in an immersive and inspiring way. The films would create conversations around gender diversity internally, and challenge perceptions with the external audience. The in-house creative team came up with four concepts, tested via focus groups and stakeholders across the group, including the gender equality network.

The campaign comprised a series of one or two minute films showing women’s lives inside and outside of work, inspiring more women to build careers at BT. Over the course of each film we see ‘her’ at work and beyond. After initial interviews, BT developed storyboards and scripts, which each colleague used to record a voiceover in their own words. The videos show that the business gives women the time and support to pursue personal passions alongside their professional ambitions. They were created with inclusivity in mind, including captions and a bespoke audio description version of each film. The campaign ran over two phases, with the first four videos appearing in August 2024. Snippets were created for paid and organic social media.

Each video or short links to a bespoke campaign landing page where visitors can see all of the campaign videos alongside proof points on how BT Group supports women at work. One popular example was Sheryl, who makes cooking videos in her spare time and even appeared on Young Masterchef. Thanks to the success of the videos, female representation grew 3-4% in August 2024 across the recruitment process, and organic/paid media generated more than 9,000 clicks on the landing page. There has been an uplift in followers on LinkedIn too, generating more than 6,000 click throughs. The campaign will continue and is helping BT to hit a high-profile organisational recruitment target, changing the make-up of its workforce for good.