Graduates Yorkshire recruits Honey for commercial launch
Graduates Yorkshire transition from being a free service to a paid service, turning over £1,036,000 in the first two years.
We worked on: Strategy | Branding | Website | Marketing Communications | Brand Guidelines
“We built a £1 million pound plus business in two years. From day one Honey has proven to be an organisation who go the extra mile to understand the context and industry in which we operate.” Martin Edmondson – Graduates Yorkshire CEO
Graduate Link had been successfully pairing up university graduates with local employers across Yorkshire and Humber, and wanted to change from being a free university service to being a paid commercial service. We were asked to meet them to discuss brand strategy and commercial consultancy before creating the new face for their commercial venture.
We found that over 400,000 new graduates were leaving university every year, looking for their first job. Half of all graduates from the University of Yorkshire settled in the region, and many more were returning home after studying elsewhere.
Most of the graduate employers were SMEs and Public Sector Organisations, but the recession had knocked the market into a 5% to 12% decline (depending on the sector). This gave employers more choice over candidates, and the need for a service to help them find the best graduates for the position.
We decided that online communication was the best way to share information between graduates, employers, local development agencies, and local government. The brand needed to have a regional edge, without limiting growth and expansion to other regions to form additional income streams.
We changed the name to Graduates Yorkshire and designed a logo based on the shape of Yorkshire itself, with dots representing graduates and businesses being drawn together. This built a strong regional foundation for the brand whilst still allowing the business model to be taken to other parts of the UK and overseas.
We then designed and developed a new website that was easy to navigate and acted as a main hub for all target audiences. This was supported by a multi-channel ‘Put Yourself in the Picture’ campaign to help graduates picture their ideal job and point them to the website. The new identity was rolled out across literature, exhibition manuals, direct mail and advertising.
To really help Graduates Yorkshire to understand their new identity, we arranged a launch event to unveil the new look to staff, and workshops to explain the brand.
“The design and branding across all channels has surpassed everyone’s expectations with sales growing from zero to a projected £1,036,000 in a total of two years! It was also a breath of fresh air to work with the Honey team as they really understand and focus on ROI from the outset. Honey truly are commercial and creative business partners.”
Martin Edmondson - CEO, Graduates Yorkshire