During COVID-19 lockdowns, industries heavily impacted by job losses disproportionately affected multicultural communities. The NSW Department of Education engaged Etcom for its Skills campaign, aiming to promote job and training opportunities, drive traffic to the Skills and Employment Hub, and increase enrolments. The goal was to raise awareness and drive enrolment among target multicultural audiences: Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Filipino, Thai, Nepalese, and Korean communities, specifically 17-24 year olds and 18-54 year old job seekers.
Etcom's approach recognised the broad impact of career decisions within multicultural families and the importance of demonstrating government support. Our strategy ensured creative and media channel placements educated and inspired through video assets and storytelling, complemented by digital display on job-seeking or relevant in-language websites. Working in an agency village, Etcom adapted and translated creative assets, ensuring cultural representation in talent and reflecting desirable employment scenarios (e.g., nursing, construction). Given the lockdowns, Etcom implemented an "always-on" hyper-targeted digital multicultural media approach using Facebook (nationality/language targeting), programmatic language targeting, and Chinese (WeChat, Youku, iQIYI) and Indian (Zee5) social/streaming services. Key job enrolment periods were factored into messaging and media weighting.
The campaign successfully generated significant traffic to the Skills NSW website. Phase I established a 14% "lead" rate to training provider websites, a benchmark exceeded in Phase II. Key digital performance highlights included: all multicultural digital media channels performing above industry benchmarks; Facebook delivering over 4.1 million impressions (176% of goal) across multicultural communities, with Filipino, Nepali, and Korean audiences showing highest engagement; and YouKu and iQIYI achieving a 1.5% click-through rate (CTR) (benchmark = 0.9%). This success demonstrates that empathetic, culturally relevant creative messaging, combined with accessible information about financial assistance, and a closely aligned in-language digital media strategy, was highly effective in connecting individuals with valuable economic opportunities.