Paddy Power Betfair challenges brand perception in external recruitment campaign

Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) has launched an external recruitment campaign in a bid to showcase its diverse workforce and address negative employer brand perceptions.

The new campaign, I AM PPB, is part of the operator’s employment strategy to attract candidates from different backgrounds and encourage them to apply for top-level tech and commercial roles at the firm.

The management team hopes the new approach will help the operator gain a competitive edge in the industry by unearthing hidden gems that may previously have been put off applying for roles in betting and gaming.

John Hiley, head of talent acquisition at PPB, told EGR Intel: “We are looking to hire a different type of profile.

“We are keen to gain an edge through more creativity and more innovation and we want to look at problems in a different way than we have done previously.

“To do that, we need to hire different people, as we have tended to hire a certain profile in the past – usually a male who is into sports and gambling.

“One of the drawbacks for us is that our Paddy Power image on social channels reinforces that particular laddish stereotype – but in terms of our commercial and business strategy, we are looking to move away from that employer brand perception through attracting more diverse people and promoting inclusion from within,” he added.

Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) recently rebranded to Flutter Entertainment, but Hiley said the PPB identity would still be used internally.

The latest iteration of the campaign features in-house produced videos that display the hobbies and passions of existing PPB employees, outside of the work environment.

The clips of the campaign were a hit on LinkedIn, where the above video of senior network manager Alan Onyeche received 336 likes and amassed more than 18,000 views.

Onyeche, based in the operator’s Hammersmith office, was one of 60 PPB employees who came forward to appear in the campaign when it was announced internally last summer.

“We wanted to showcase our diverse employees in a different light through their hobbies and personalities outside of work,” said Hiley. “By using real PPB employees, we hope to change perceptions of what the ‘typical employee’ looks like.

“These videos hopefully achieve that in a subtle way,” he added.

The I AM PPB campaign has also been designed to help the operator reach its 2020 goal of making at least 35% of its European workforce female, excluding retail.

The firm launched the campaign across social channels including Instagram and Facebook, as well as in tech publications WIRED and Silicon Republic.

Bespoke ‘I AM’ campaigns will also be launched across PPB tech hubs in Porto and Cluj.

“Take developing products as an example,” Hiley told EGR. “If we continue to hire from within the industry, then we are just going to do things in the same way – and that means less innovation and less creativity.

“But if we look at people from backgrounds that we hadn’t considered, then we are opening up talent pools that had previously been closed off to us.

“Without that, we will not progress or grow as we want to as a company,” he added.