Memphis Police Department (via HRO Partners, Inc.) engaged Morris Marketing Group to develop and implement a comprehensive and engaging marketing campaign to recruit high school seniors into the MPD training Public Service Technician (PST) pipeline to specifically address a shortage of officers.
While we were familiar with the Memphis Police Department’s Public Service Technician program, the Blue Path initiative was a new approach to recruiting potential trainees by specifically targeting area high school seniors by offering full college tuition subsidies, and other benefits.
The overall strategy for this project was to create awareness of the program and recruit participants to sign up. This included general communication about the opportunities provided by the Blue Path program, including a detailed timeline of strategic media communications points surrounding specifically targeted topics and deadlines.
The plan was to develop a series of different communication pieces for overall education and promotion of the Blue Path initiative to encourage participants to sign up. Specific, measurable objectives included:
The target audience was any Memphis area high school senior on track to graduate by June 2017 who was a US citizen and a resident of Shelby County, and/or their parent/legal guardian. The program provided a paid two year college education FREE if to qualified applicants who signed up and successfully completed the program. Truly a path to become the “Best in Blue.”
More than 300 Potential Recruits Submitted Applications
Publicity Value $103,950
Earned Media Audience 10.75 million