Challenge
fuse8 were honoured to be commissioned by such a revered institution as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW). After a positive meeting in their beautiful historic offices, we were tasked with making accountancy ‘sexy’ via social media to the next generation of chartered accountants.
The aim of the project was to establish the ICAEW in social media, increase awareness of the ACA qualification amongst undergraduate students and inform them about the benefits of a career as a ACA chartered accountant.
Insight
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales has traditionally relied on contacting students through a series of live events. We quickly learned that this project formed a core part of the institutions’ growing use of online media to extend their reach in contacting fresh graduates via social media channels.
Work
fuse8’s solution was a comprehensive facebook campaign, which included
- A targeted ad campaign
- The enhancement and optimisation of the existing ICAEW Careers page, including a bespoke application
- A ongoing facebook outreach and management programme.
We built our campaign around the Institute’s key creative positioning ‘qualified to succeed’. All creative was designed to promote the positive effect the ACA qualification will have on an undergraduate's future career and their life satisfaction.
Our ‘Plan My Future’ Facebook application invited students to explore how their career could pan out as an ACA qualified accountant. As well as previewing possible roles, salary and benefits, the app also allowed personalisation and social sharing.
Working with Facebook media specialist Grape Digital to place ads and manage the outreach programme - the campaign is running through 2011 but already appears to be performing well. Who said accountancy wasn’t sexy?
Results
The first six weeks of the campaign delivered 16,464 click-throughs and 20,622 “Plan My Future” tab views.
Over 75% of users were within ICAEW’s target age group and 90% were in the UK.
The most impressive result was the overall level of social engagement achieved with ICAEW - Facebook posts were viewed 100,681 times during the campaign period.