A new employment scheme offering free accommodation in London will soon be available to people from lower socio-economic backgrounds seeking roles in the advertising industry.
The majority of recruits to the advertising industry are from higher socio-economic backgrounds or already live in (or can afford to live in) London. Usually, they come from the same few universities or got their job through a friend or relative.
Novel employment scheme
To begin reversing this deeply damaging trend, Lucky Generals is launching The Barracks to remove the barriers to entry for people from outside of London and from lower socio-economic backgrounds and extend the industry’s talent pool.
The new employment scheme targets people looking to begin a career in advertising by offering them a three-month placement spanning account management, research and insights, creative and production.
The Barracks
Recruits from outside of London will be offered free accommodation in a purposely rented flat paid for by the agency, while anyone from within London will have their travel expenses paid by the
Andy Nairn, a founding partner at Lucky Generals, said: “When I first came down to London, many years ago, accommodation was much cheaper, but it’s skyrocketed since then. This makes it really difficult for young people even to get a start in our industry unless they already live in the capital or have wealthy parents. There’s no point talking about diversity if we don’t address some of the deeper-rooted barriers in society, that get in the way. That’s what we’re trying to do with the Barracks.”
Katie Lee, CEO at Lucky Generals, said: “If everyone thinks the same, come from the same place and has the same experiences, how can we move the industry on and how can we do work that gets us out of our advertising bubble?
“We are making all sorts of changes such as not incentivising introductions, but to put our money where our mouth is, we are also introducing Lucky Barracks. With Lucky Barracks, we’re trying to make that change one person at a time and signal to anyone thinking of working here that we know what the industry needs to be brilliant and we are trying to remove some of the barriers that stop that talent coming in.”
The Details
The Barracks themselves will be located in Stratford, seven minutes on the London Underground from Kings Cross station. It will be filled with an Ammo box with welcome gifts and a guide to London, a Kitchen stocked with Yorkshire Tea and Taylors coffee, a Co-op food delivery to fill the kitchen in their first week, and Amazon gift card to add their own home comforts.
Areas covered in the employment scheme will include creating content, shoot running, creative idea generation, competitive reviews, handling social listening and cultural trends, secret shopping, client entertainment and meeting planning.
However, The Barracks is not just about being thrown in at the deep end. All recruits will be properly supported and trained through the process to ensure anyone with the right aptitude and attitude can shine and succeed, no matter what their background.
How to sign up
Candidates are advised to go to the Lucky Generals website and register their interest when they will be asked one question: “If you had £1,000 to pursue a mission of your own, what would it be and who would you call in for backup?”
To ensure the process is properly targeting those from the correct areas, it will follow the Government recommended questions for determining socio-economic background.
