The Brief
LinkedIn believes in building a more inclusive workforce, and is championing a fairer and more equitable world of work for all.
The company teamed up with the Inside Out project with the goal of actively fostering new beginnings for young ex-offenders and disadvantaged youth.
Fight or Flight were engaged to help define the problem and to actively highlight to businesses the benefit that getting young ex-offenders back into the workforce can have on the economy and businesses. We were tasked with making a big media splash – whilst remaining sensitive to the young project ambassadors involved.
The Campaign: Blank Canvas
To demonstrate the potential value of prison leavers to businesses and the economy, particularly in a tough recruitment market, LinkedIn commissioned research with the Cebr which quantified the opportunity: finding roles for unemployed prison leavers could potentially boost GDP by £2bn.
Working on a highly sensitive and complex media strategy, the comms team simplified the narrative to communicate the most important campaign messages, working collaboratively with producers and journalists to secure interviews with major broadcast networks, national print titles, business media and trade publications for the media launch day.
Media had access to the project ambassadors, Inside Out founders and LinkedIn country manager, Janine Chamberlin about their roles in the project.
The Impact
– Supporting a skills-based economy: 24 hours of training delivered to eight ex-offenders.
– Three of the eight prison leavers have set up their own clothing labels; three more have been offered internships at marketing agency Jellyfish; one was offered an internship at The London Print Club; one is currently interviewing for a role at Selfridges.
– Integrating eight leavers into the UK workforce generated a net taxpayer saving of £1.1m (average cost of recidivism per prison-leaver is £140,000).
– Widespread awareness of ex-offender employment rates were driven in the broadcast media through interviews for participants, Janine Chamberlin, UK country manager at LinkedIn, and Greg McKenzie and Zack Fortag on BBC London Evening News, ITV News, Channel 5, London Live, GB News, BBC Radio London and online outlets including Metro, Business Insider, The Independent and LadBible.
– Over 1,000 units of stock sold over the nine-day sales period, with £10,500 revenue generated for charity.
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