Portfolio

London Borough of Haringey

Fostering hope and positivity

In 2009, LB Haringey’s Social Services Department went through a period of enormous change. Penna Barkers successfully helped to inform audiences about the transformation they were undergoing, and supported them during a period of intense media scrutiny. In 2010, the story was very different. Progress and prospects for improvement were recognised as “Good” by Ofsted. So this time, it was our task to completely reposition how people saw this department, highlight the good news and move away from all the negativity that had surrounded it.

The solution

We proposed a 6 month planned campaign to drive traffic to a newly refreshed Children Services microsite www.thestorycontinues.net – where our positive messages could be fully delivered. This was launched in The Guardian’s Society pages in a way that had never been attempted in recruitment before: the advert was set on the left and right sides of a double page spread. But the real innovations came with the way we engaged with visitors to the site. We created a simple registration page, allowing us to capture data and engage with potential candidates throughout the year. After all, Haringey were well aware that short-term fixes would not be enough.

The results

At the time of writing, this campaign had just launched. Already, we’ve had some extremely encouraging feedback. Proof of this has been the increase in traffic we had received to www.thestorycontinues.net. After just 2 weeks of advertising and exhibition presence, there have been an impressive 5,823 visitors to the site.