Project Types: EVP Development
Client: PricewaterhouseCoopers
This project was implemented during the autumn of 2006 when PwC’s growth focus was on the Emerging Markets of Eastern Europe – 23 countries were coming on stream quickly across the region and all were focused on recruiting graduates and experienced professionals of the highest quality.
The key objective was to identify a compelling EVP for PwC across the region, part of which required us to consider the potential relevance of the messaging being utilised at that time across the UK. We had to be absolutely confident in our understanding of what PwC needed to be saying – and how, to the target candidate audiences in those territories – people who had suddenly become the focus of attention for a large number of ‘preferred choice’ employers with a high global profile. Though tempting to think of CEE/CIS as a ‘region’ we needed to keep uppermost in our minds the enormous differences that exited across the various territories in terms of geography, economy, education, political history and culture.
The six-month project involved desk research, online research activities and qualitative research through telephone interviews, depth interviews, mini groups and large discussion groups amongst existing employees of PwC. Qualitative research focused on the five largest countries – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia.
The project culminated in a very successful two-day workshop that saw representatives of the various countries – professionals from HR and Recruitment Marketing, working together to understand and determine the brand articulation and messaging and the practicalities of how to manage subsequent attraction activities. Identified messaging was strong and flexible, and the provision of a ‘toolkit’ of parts enabled each territory to manage its own attraction activities.