11,700 young Irish women are destined for a job in a supermarket, social circumstance having ruled out college and career as viable options.

11,700 amateur team players whose brilliance on the sports field isn’t valued in the real world… who only feel worthwhile when they are training and playing.

They didn’t know that they can get paid for what they are good at – that the Defence Forces need exactly what they have: physical and moral courage, selflessness, loyalty, & respect.

Our idea was to make them realize that there is a job out there that they have been training for all their lives... they just didn’t know it.

Through a national, online poll we established that the vast majority rule themselves out on an assumption that they wont be a good fit!

We needed a smarter approach.

We needed to be as efficient as possible with our budget. And that meant not talking to everyone.

We narrowed the universe from 1.8m to just 11,700 qualified leads (most likely to fit) – young, futureless, active sportswomen who only felt valued on the sports field.

And then we built our creative solution on the key audience insight – “I wish I could be valued in life for what I am valued for on the sports field.”

Our task for 2016 was to increase the number of female applicants to the Defence Forces, year on year (to help achieve the quota by 2020 (from 6% to 12% female soldiers)).

On finding a ripe audience, we set our ambitions on netting 577 qualified leads – those most likely to apply and succeed.

Assuming the number of male applicants would remain the same as previous years, 577 committed female recruits would meet the 2020 gender quota.

Three weeks in and armed with a media spend of only €750.00 on Facebook, we managed to hit the magic 577 and increase annual applicants by +65%.