The Australian Federal Police were struggling to recruit younger, more diverse and diversely-skilled candidates. And so, rather than traditional recruitment communication, which our audience were tuning out of, we identified where they were tuning in – true crime podcasts. This work is relevant for entertainment because we created effective recruitment in the form of entertainment: a 6 part podcast called Crime Interrupted that delved into Australia’s most notorious crimes, showing how a diverse range of skillsets brought them down. It became Australia’s second most popular podcast.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government tasked with investigating and preventing serious crime, ranging from terrorism to human trafficking. As serious crime evolves and becomes more complex, the skillsets required to stay a step ahead of it and the people required to prevent it have become more diverse.

Problem is, law enforcement has an image problem. They're often seen to use force over finesse, and are considered a relatively dated and male-dominated industry by the very candidates they require. To combat these misperceptions and position themselves as a progressive and fulfilling career for diverse candidates, in 2021 the AFP repositioned themselves as an organisation that ‘outsmarts serious crime with intelligent action’.

To better reflect this positioning, we were tasked with creating a recruitment campaign aimed at diverse and diversely-skilled candidates that the AFP required to tackle complex serious crime.

True crime is one of Australia’s fastest growing genres, particularly amongst our primary desired demographic (women aged 17 – 25). So we turned our recruitment messages into a true crime podcast - creating resonant entertainment in a compelling format, designed to pull listeners in rather than pushing into their lives.

At a time when our audience were disengaging from traditional recruitment communication, Crime Interrupted had potential recruits tuning in to AFP messaging for over an hour every week. Each episode of Crime Interrupted was designed to showcase not only a serious crime, but diverse and unexpected skillsets that were responsible for stopping them, ultimately reframing the AFP as a diverse and progressive career.

The biggest barrier for our target audience was a significant lack of understanding about what the AFP does. They required a brand repositioning, however traditional media couldn't tell the stories that would help reposition us with the nuance required. Cynical about the organisation, our audience were disconnecting from traditional recruitment messaging. So we looked to entertainment channels. Specifically, true crime podcasts, which were popular amongst our desired audience.

To tell our stories compellingly, we needed the right podcast partner. We conducted audience analysis of true crime podcasts against our desired audience demographics to match recruitment objectives.

We also looked at partners who could weave in our recruitment messaging without compromising their own brand.

Casefile Presents was the perfect partner. The investigative team was not only Australia's top true crime podcaster, but the anonymous host was an ex-police officer: someone well-versed in translating delicate or complex investigation material into entertaining narratives.

Working with the Casefile team, we created a six-episode podcast called Crime Interrupted.

Each episode delved into a particular, notorious serious crime - from terrorism to sex trafficking - and through an intriguing narrative, showed the diverse skills from diverse candidates required to stop them. Casefile spoke to officers, victims and even criminals to offer a truly compelling picture of a career in the AFP.

To drive repeat engagement, the podcast was released weekly across all major streaming platforms, and linked directly to our recruitment hub.

Crime Interrupted has resulted in recruitment upswings even before the campaign has ended.

Crime interrupted has already been listened to over 400,000 times.

It reached #1 in the Australian True Crime Spotify podcast charts and #2 in national Spotify charts behind Joe Rogan in total podcast streams.

Visits to the recruitment website is up 114% from the same period the year previously and, in regard to applications, actual numbers from female and CALD applications are significantly are up. Female applications are up 40%, and the proportion of female applications as a percentage has increased to 35%, the highest ever figure on record.

At a time when our audience were disengaging from traditional recruitment communication, Crime Interrupted had potential recruits actively engaging for over an hour every week.

The Crime Interrupted recruitment campaign is regarded by the AFP as their most successful campaign in history, and series 2 is underway.