Only a sailor can recruit a sailor

The challenge

Recruitment to the Royal Navy was challenging. Although the general public knew what the Royal Navy did as a whole, there was a blank when it came to understanding what individuals did within the force and what kind of people they are.

Our strategy: Brendan Spoors, a real-life Flight Lieutenant joins social-networking site, Bebo

The old adage – “Only a sailor can recruit a sailor”, might be a cliché today, but we felt it still held true in the twenty-first century. Joining the Armed Forces is a big commitment, maybe more so than any other career. We felt that potential recruits had lots of questions as to what a career in the Royal Navy would be like.

So we put the profile of Brendan Spoors, a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, up on Bebo, a social networking site, giving young men and women the opportunity to meet him in an environment they trust. Social networks are increasingly the one place where young people especially spend time forging friendships. The profile introduced the real Brendan, an ordinary sort of guy who likes football, rugby and is into The Foo Fighters.

The results: Brendan makes thousands of friends on Bebo and Navy recruitment rises

Within 30 days of the launch of the campaign, Brendan’s Bebo page had 64,000 views and he made more than 1,100 friends (which is impressive when set against the Royal Navy’s yearly target of 4,000 recruits). The profile page has also been the single highest traffic driver to the Royal Navy Careers website. The Royal Navy has been so impressed with individual responses from Beboers that it is looking at putting up more profiles on Bebo. Eventually, the aim is to have our own network of Royal Navy personnel answering questions about their careers and roles and interacting with the public.

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