Vet Times
Injecting the animal magic into a vet recruitment brand
Veterinary Business Development (VBD) is an independent publishing company that produces key print and online news titles for the veterinary profession. They launched their first dedicated veterinary jobs board in 2014 and Vet Times Jobs is now the biggest veterinary recruitment forum in the UK.
Vet Times Jobs helps vet nurses, surgeons, graduates, and practice managers to find and recruit the top talent via their website and app. Operating in a highly regulated market and in the corporate world of recruitment, they needed a fresh pair of eyes to help them stand out from the pack.
Interpret + define
Today, 1 in 4 vets are leaving the profession citing poor work-life balance, highly stressful working conditions, and excessive staff turnover. This is largely a product of the pandemic, but even before this, recruiting and retaining talent in the veterinary industry was tough.
With no real differentiation between veterinary recruiters, companies like Vet Times Jobs needed a more attractive offer to engage qualified candidates.
Imagine + Create
First, we needed to pinpoint their brand essence to inform a new set of brand guidelines. This would help anyone working for the recruiter to maintain consistency across publications.
Vet Times Jobs weren’t new to the industry. They’d been listening to vets for 15 years. Nobody was better placed to understand vets’ specific needs and challenges. We developed an internal proposition that could drive their communications: “We’re for vets”.
Our art directors and writers then set out to develop the words, colours, imagery and graphics to show vets we’re on their side and can find them the best staffing solutions.
Rise + Shine
One thing all vets have in common is their love of animals. So we made adorable dogs, cute cats, and cheeky chickens the stars of the show. Tight budgets dictated the use of stock photography, but we deliberately chose quirky shots with tons of personality rather than the usual bland and boring options. Our carefully selected animals all have plenty of character with white backgrounds to allow for easy editing.
To help bring the brand to life graphically, we created bright speech bubbles and background lozenges, coloured backgrounds and dynamic arrows. We also developed the tone of voice to make sure Vet Times Jobs sounded friendly yet still professional.
A range of advertisements followed suit, where we applied the new assets to recruit for a range of veterinary roles. By creating branding and ads that were far from dull we helped Vet Times Jobs to rise above the competition and remain the no.1 choice for vet jobs.