Company: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Inc.
Company Description: Fresh & Easy opened its first stores in 2007 with the vision to change the way consumers shop by making fresh meals and groceries more affordable and accessible. Our goal is to bring affordable, wholesome food to everyone-a passion shared by our entire team, from parent company, Tesco, and the experienced chefs in our state-of-the-art kitchen facilities in California to our retail teams
Nomination Category: Communications & Marketing Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Social Media Focused

Nomination Title: Company's Use of YouTube to Showcase Employer Brand

In up to 500 words, tell the judges about the nominated campaign: its genesis, development, planning, commission, and performance to date:

HR director, Emma Weare relocated to the U.S. from Tesco’s U.K. office in 2007 to assist with recruitment efforts as the company prepared for its U.S. launch of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Inc. Weare spearheaded efforts to staff retail stores in three Western states including the distribution center and several manufacturing locations as well as the home office in El Segundo, CA. Given the rapidly rising number of job seekers using social media as a critical component of their job search, Weare was committed to implementing the latest social media tools and programs in order to capture the attention of quality candidates. Weare was committed to creating a cohesive employment brand across all business units and positioning Fresh & Easy, first and foremost, as a “Great Place To Work.”

Weare developed and implemented Fresh & Easy’s employment brand strategy in alignment to its core values as a “Great Place to Work” using social media to interact and engage with potential candidates as well as spotlight current employees.

YouTube, the world’s largest video-sharing site, was the perfect channel to reach a mass audience utilizing multimedia to showcase what it is like to work at Fresh & Easy. Weare used YouTube to communicate Fresh & Easy’s “Great Place To Work” employment branding and collaborated with a creative agency to plan and develop videos that successfully showcased Fresh & Easy’s unique culture and employees. Weare worked hand in hand with the team to develop concepts,
storyboards, footage and scripts resulting in a series of fun and engaging videos that captured the brand and position Fresh & Easy as a “Great Place to Work.”

Employees were nominated by their managers and co-workers in order to be featured in the videos. The videos were designed to be a fun way to engage with employees and make them brand ambassadors for Fresh & Easy. Employees were asked to share their background, experiences and why they loved working for Fresh & Easy. Employee interviews were unscripted and employees were encouraged to share their honest perspectives on why Fresh & Easy was their employer of choice.

Today, all social media efforts and campaigns are designed to tout Fresh & Easy’s “Great Place To Work” branding to internal and external audiences. Since launching the first Youtube video in November 2011, through Weare’s vision and strategy, Fresh & Easy Careers YouTube Playlist now has 23 videos which have generated over 14K hits. In addition, the Fresh & Easy channel has 1,757 subscribers and over 111K channel views.

Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the team that created and carried out the nominated communications campaign (up to 100 words):

Emma Weare is the Director of Talent Acquisition, HR Systems & Processes at Fresh and Easy Neighborhood Market, Inc. Fresh & Easy is a subsidiary of British retailer, Tesco PLC. Weare relocated to the U.S. from Tesco’s U.K. office in 2007 to assist with recruitment efforts as the company prepared for its U.S. launch of Fresh & Easy. Weare spearheaded efforts to staff retail stores in 3 Western states including the distribution center, manufacturing locations and the home office. Emma now oversees all talent acquisition efforts and processes and also manages the HR Systems and HR Service Call Center.