Studio Graphene, a fast-growing app development company, faced challenges in attracting top-tier talent in the competitive tech industry. As the demand for skilled app developers, designers, and engineers surged, the company recognised the need for an innovative recruitment strategy that would differentiate them from competitors. 

To tackle this challenge, Studio Graphene partnered with us to craft an engaging and imaginative employer brand video and a recruitment video.

Objectives

• Talent Attraction: Develop an employer brand video that highlights Studio Graphene’s pioneering projects, collaborative work ethos, and career advancement opportunities to entice top-tier candidates from the world’s best universities.
• Talent Retention: make current staff feel proud to work at Studio Graphene.
• Showcase Company Culture: Convey the company’s values, team camaraderie, and work environment to provide potential candidates an authentic glimpse into life at Studio Graphene.
• Distinguishing Factor: Set Studio Graphene apart from other tech firms through a visually captivating and emotionally resonant video that captures the core of the company’s mission and principles.

Approach:

We collaborated closely with Studio Graphene’s HR and marketing teams. We took them through our defined creative strategy process to grasp the company’s culture, values, and unique selling points. This process has led to successful recruitment videos for some of the world’s leading tech brands. It is divided into several key phases:

• Creative Strategy Workshop: Firstly we listen and learn. Here we gather our creative team, along with all client stakeholders and identify the audience, competitors and aims for the video.
  
• Creative Strategy Report: Then we create a document which lays out all the important information to ensure alignment. We build a target persona for the audience and think about their internal and external needs. We identify the mindset shift that we need to take the audience through to lead them to the desired action, which was to apply for a job.
• One Clear Message: In our workshop we identify the one thing the audience should remember a week after watching the video. A genuine passion, excitement and interest for the work was a key sentiment for us to communicate. They have fun solving client challenges from a design perspective and a technical point of view.  Their products not only look amazing but they’re built using robust technology and a creative use of technology. So getting the balance right between design, creative technology usage and development/ engineering is key to their success. We knew that this would become the northstar for our creative approach. 
• Competitor Analysis: We looked at competitor videos to determine the industry benchmark. We found that competitors were making talking heads videos with slow motion shots of people working in an office and lots of generic stock footage. Because that was the status quo, we knew we had to do something different. 
• Creative Ideas: Once we had all the goals agreed and a strategy in place, we worked on a creative solution to the problem of differentiating them enough to encourage talented people to apply for a job. This is an absolutely essential part of the process to get right so we spent time internally workshopping several ideas and testing them against our system for evaluating ideas.
• Client Discussion: We don’t like to surprise clients so we present early stage ideas for review and discussion. Once a nugget of an idea has been agreed upon we dig deeper to expose the gold.
• Creative Proposal: From the workshop and from our research we knew that Studio Graphene pride themselves on their innovation and the creative ways they solve client problems. We also knew that graduates value the ability to be creative, highly on their job seeking agenda. So we presented ideas for how we could show Studio Graphene as a creative and innovative place to work. Rather than just state that in a talking head interview, we knew that we had to imbue the film with creative innovation in order for the message to resonate.

So we pitched the idea of a computer, stood on a desk in a darkened room with a single user coding. Their work would be projected large onto a cinema-sized screen with projections overlapping the user’s face. Fashion film lighting would be employed to underline the creativity of their work.

We knew this would be a bold, cinematic approach which would differentiate them from other tech companies who were explaining their employer brand in more traditional videos. But we were also aware that balancing creativity and consistency would be essential. While creativity is important for standing out, too much deviation from the core brand identity can dilute brand recognition and loyalty. Also, we weren’t sure whether Studio Graphene would be willing to take a creative leap of faith with us, so we paused and took a sense check. We referred back to our strategy to ensure that our idea aligned with the core brand message. We also revisited the agreed aims for the project, which included helping the audience to feel inspired, with a sense of innovation and excitement. We knew that a video imbued with a creative pulse would be a great way to differentiate Studio Graphene in a crowded market.  We also noted that we wanted the film to be emotive and less of a pure explainer film because emotions create a deeper connection with an audience than facts and figures.

We chose to centre the film around their creative process. We knew that current employees could all take pride from being involved in part of a process which creates an end product that the whole organisation can be proud of. And we knew that candidates would be motivated by becoming part of a process which Studio Graphene are so proud of, they made a whole film about it.

The concept for the film was titled: how we build it.

The next stage was client approval. Because we had worked collaboratively and iterated the idea together there were no surprises. When presenting the idea for approval we referred back to the strategy and connected our creative ideas to the strategic imperative. The stakeholders unanimously came onboard and got behind our creative approach. So we jumped into our production process. The next stages were:

• Conceptualisation and Storyboarding: We devised a storyboard outlining the video’s narrative arc, pinpointing moments that reflect Studio Graphene’s culture and innovation-driven ethos.
• Script Creation: Our in-house script writers have been creating video scripts for over 25 years so they know the pacing of dialogue that works well in employer brand films. This was essential because trying to cram too much in is a common mistake when brevity actually leads to clarity. We were able to study Studio Graphene’s creative process and distill it into a script that would sound compelling when read aloud. We were keen to highlight the pride they take in their process, so we built in a rhythm and pace to the dialogue that would allow audiences the time to absorb each point before moving onto the next. This implied a certain gravitas to each step. 
• Casting: Studio Graphene employees were selected to feature in the video, ensuring authenticity and relatability.
• Location Scouting: The video production team scouted the three Studio Graphene company offices via video calls. They have offices in London, Lisbon and New Delhi. Across these locations we looked at collaborative spaces and project workstations, to ensure we could capture an authentic ambiance. We also looked for a cinema in which we could create the big-screen effect that would showcase their creative work. The Studio Graphene London office is based in a co-working WeWork where the actual office space itself is small, but with clever use of movement and editing we knew we would be able to show the office space in a good light. The office based footage didn’t suit the cinematic approach we wanted for the employer brand film so we reserved that material for the recruitment video.
• Global Production: Bold Content has been filming all over the world for over a decade and we’ve built up a network of trusted freelancers in many countries. We were able to rely on this network to send a crew to the Lisbon office and another to the Delhi office. We briefed them thoroughly to capture beautiful shots, to make an engaging, friendly, accessible, professional video with plenty of personality.
  Our Director dialled in via video call on each day of shooting to Direct the crew. This was more cost-effective and environmentally friendly than sending a crew out to each country. We were also able to ensure consistency with the London filming using this approach.
• London Production: We then filmed for a day in a London cinema to capture our creative, cinematic shots. Our in-house crew and equipment captured striking shots in order to make a fast-paced employer brand film.   
• Voiceover: Rather than using a professional voiceover artist, we knew that a member of staff reading the script aloud, would increase authenticity. So our in-house Director worked with a member of Studio Graphene’s staff to guide them into capturing voiceover that felt natural yet engaging. We wanted it to be charged with the correct emotional tone of excitement, passion and interest for the work which is not easy for a non-actor to achieve, but with a little guidance we were able to coax a performance that feels authentic, down to earth and charged with the genuine love they have for their craft.
• Visual and Audio Elements: High-calibre cinematography, dynamic colour grading, and engaging camera movements were employed to visually captivate the audience. An uplifting background score and thoughtfully curated sound effects complemented the visuals.
• Editing and Post-Production: The editing process involved weaving together the narrative, overlaying employee voiceover with pertinent footage, and incorporating the creative cinematic shots to truly make the film stand out from the crowd.

Results:

The collaboration between Studio Graphene and Bold Content resulted in a captivating and visually impressive recruitment video that achieved exceptional outcomes.

Our creative solution met the brief of showing genuine passion, excitement and interest for the work that Studio Graphene does. Viewers can see the team having fun solving client challenges and witness the emphasis they place on design.

By displaying code on a big screen we hero the creativity that goes into the work. We demonstrate the pride that they have in their work. This signals to any potential recruits that their work will be celebrated, admired and appreciated.

We know that this creates a much more effective recruitment and retention tool than a series of talking head interviews ever could.

Studio Graphene’s marketing manager commented that he was glad we pushed them creatively to take a leap of faith.  “A website can only communicate so much with written text – but the film will show what Studio Graphene is like under the hood – a deeper look into what the place is about.”

Ritam, the founder of Studio Graphene commented that we met the brief with creative flair and made a powerful and effective tool that can be used in their recruitment process for years to come.

Conclusion:

The collaboration between Studio Graphene and Bold Content underscores the potency of a creative recruitment video as a tool for attracting premier talent and enhancing brand reputation. By effectively conveying the company’s culture, values, and achievements, the video offers prospective candidates compelling reasons to consider Studio Graphene as their preferred employer. This case study underscores the significance of storytelling and visual communication in modern recruitment strategies.

Author Bio

Adam Neale has been working in the video industry for over two decades. He has run multiple production companies and has received awards for his work from global film festivals along with a Vimeo Staff Pick and a Webby Award.