By Nathaniel Luce
The client: redpepper, a full-service creative agency and innovation lab with offices in Nashville and Atlanta, works with organizations across multiple industries to develop brand strategies, craft advertising campaigns, drive innovation, and more. Their clients include Cracker Barrel, Slack and Kirkland’s.
The project: redpepper is working with a global professional services firm to create an integrated marketing campaign that will speak to upcoming STEM graduates, raise awareness of the firm as a relevant and exciting career choice, and ultimately increase the number of STEM applicants.
As a part of the campaign, redpepper will concept a tech-driven idea that will put prospective students into a kind of “day in the life” or “week in the life” experience that shows prospects what it’s really like to work at the firm. These experiences will be used at career fairs and other on-campus physical interactions between the firm’s recruiters and prospective students.
The challenge for Accelerator teams was to create a relevant solution for redpepper’s concept that involved emerging technology such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality that STEM students could interact with to help them see what working at the firm could really be like — collaboratively and creatively solving problems for the world’s top brands.
The presentations: Teams crafted a variety of activations at Career Fairs, on social media, and on the firm’s website to reach STEM students at a variety of points in their job searches, from high school all the way to senior year of college. Virtual reality tours of the firm’s global facilities, augmented reality advertising on Facebook, hackathon sponsorships, and events incorporating Twitch and Super Smash Brothers were all recommended to build engagement and change existing perceptions of redpepper’s client.
Team J, winners of the Research Award, pose with their trophy
Teams also suggested practical modifications to STEM-related areas of the client’s website to better highlight the diversity of intriguing career opportunities. A few advised redpepper to take a closer look at the recruiters themselves, emphasizing consistency of message and STEM backgrounds to build stronger connections with job seekers.
Teams used extensive qualitative and quantitative research to support their recommendations, leveraging databases through the Walker Management Library and even conducting their own surveys. Students also visited redpepper’s Nashville office early in the week to take a tour and ask questions about the project deliverables.
The feedback: redpepper praised teams for their creativity and presentation abilities. “You did a fantastic job,” Tim McMullen, Creative Chief for redpepper, told the students. “Your teams developed some extremely strategic and innovative ideas that are likely to make it to market. It’s hard to work that fast with so many unknowns, but you were able to do so at a high level.”
Team F, winners of the challenge, pose with redpepper
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