Award winning campaign rebuilding apprenticeship confidence in Wales and driving real starts.

WINNER – CIPR Excellence Awards – Best Long-term Campaign 

WINNER – CIPR Excellence Awards – Best Long-term Client Care

Challenge

For the Welsh Government, we delivered a five-year Apprenticeship Week Wales campaign (2021–2025) designed to make apprenticeships feel like a credible, local and future-proof choice for 16–24-year-olds while also giving teachers and families the tools to champion them.

COVID-19 knocked apprenticeship uptake in Wales and hit under‑25s hardest, who accounted for three in five job losses. Confidence and motivation were down, and many young people didn’t believe good-quality opportunities existed where they lived. Apprenticeships were also too often seen as ‘second best’ compared to other routes.

Using Apprenticeship Week Wales as the annual moment to shift perceptions and drive action – we needed to increase awareness, propensity and ultimately supporting growth in apprenticeship starts. Research showed teachers and families were the biggest influence on young people’s choices, so we had to win hearts and minds beyond the 16–24 audience too.

Solution

We built a long-term creative platform a ‘Genius Decision’ that could flex year-on-year while staying instantly recognisable. Everything laddered up to three communications pillars that removed barriers and made apprenticeships feel achievable and relevant:

• Clarity – cut through post-pandemic uncertainty with simple, practical information on benefits and pathways.

• Confidence – reassure young people (and the adults advising them) about support, progression and real outcomes.

• Connection – prove high-quality opportunities exist locally, across sectors, for people like them.

Each year we reviewed performance, audience insight and the wider employment context to keep the work sharp. That meant coordinating messaging with the Young Person’s Guarantee, addressing under-representation (including ethnic minority groups, women and disabled people), and responding fast to shifts in sentiment – from pessimism about government support to news coverage that questioned whether apprenticeships were even viable.

To bring the platform to life, we combined PR, social & partnerships to meet young people where they already were and to equip the adults they trust:

• Teacher-first learning: created a bilingual interactive lesson with Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru to spark classroom conversations and challenge stereotypes.

• Trusted voices on social: partnered with 18 influencers and youth-led content formats to land the message authentically. Including collaboration with former apprentice Liam Reardon, delivering 983k views and 10k+ positive engagements.

• Credible advocates: built partnerships with Welsh business leaders and youth organisations (including NYAS, Urdd and Colleges Wales) to amplify content through established networks.

Real stories that feel local: developed case studies, PR and video that spotlighted apprentices in priority sectors – from a female engineer challenging STEM stereotypes to a social care apprentice inspired during the pandemic which we amplified via channels including S4C, Social Care Wales and WRU.