The challenge:

REA Group, which operates leading property websites around the world, approached Water Cooler to help them promote their new benefits for parents. The benefits are definitely something to shout about, helping them to attract more female talent: for example, paid parental leave was extended from 12 weeks to six months for primary carers and from one week to three months for secondary carers.

How to get the word out about a policy that left many other companies in the industry behind?

The solution

Working closely with the client, Water Cooler created a full communication campaign, including blog posts, digital posters and community discussions on Slack and Jive.

But the real genius was the creative talent behind the campaign’s visuals. A member of the project team had spotted the Instagram account 15 Minute Drawings in which artist Dougal MacPherson documented his family life through his own beautiful illustrations.

It just so happened that Dougal was a web developer at REA. This was an opportunity not to be missed and when approached, Dougal agreed that his illustrations could be used for the campaign.

Using the illustrations was great but the real gold for employee engagement is always meeting the people behind the story. So Water Cooler interviewed Dougal for a feature on the company intranet in which we uncovered that he had also recently illustrated a children’s book, Introducing Teddy, with a positive transgender character at its heart.

The book has since been published globally by Bloosmbury (the publishers of Harry Potter), as well as being translated into nine other languages.

The outcome

The campaign was a huge hit with both the Executive Leadership team and the wider employee base.

And the positive response to the campaign wasn’t limited to the new benefits. The feel-good factor extended to the creative way the campaign itself had showcased and promoted the talent of one of REA’s own.

The lesson

There is a lot of hidden talent within organisations. So before automatically bringing in creatives from outside, try to source your talent from within your own business. The rise of social media has made it a whole lot easier and is helping clued-up internal comms professionals raise their game.