Capita and the British Army
Transforming how the British Army connects with the next generation of recruits
The British Army recruits 365 days a year. But their recruitment website wasn’t pulling its weight.
Gen Z - the British Army’s key audience - expects seamless, mobile-first experiences. But an outdated site clashed with the Army’s modern, diverse, future-facing ambitions. In the UK’s competitive job market, that was a problem. Our mission: build a future-ready platform to boost new registrations by 10% in just 12 weeks. Mission accepted.
Gen Z job seekers are purpose-driven, with sky-high expectations for usability, relevance and storytelling. Research showed that to inspire them to convert from civilian to soldier, we needed to offer more than just rational facts, we needed to inspire them by pitching the 24/7 Army lifestyle. To feel more accessible to all, we also needed to shed a brooding tone and make the experience more user-friendly.
We changed the pace of the user journey by encouraging users to not dwell on early pages of the site for too long and made a big call to separate the Reserves from full time roles in the primary navigation. As users travelled deeper down the right path, the depth of content increased proportionally too – intuitively matching the users’ interest levels.
To create a more inclusive visual identity, we replaced predictable military tropes like camo and heavy greens with an energetic orange and a subtle layer of gritty texture, then added motion principles that mimicked the heft of hardware.
We reformatted content in key places from long-form copy to interactive features that snapped Gen Z out of passive browsing, immersing them in army life. A graphic novel inspired by Accenture Song’s You Belong Here campaign put them in the heart of a humanitarian crisis; binaural audio experiences surrounded them with sounds from the firing range and gym, and an interactive base tour demystified what life is like, showing them inside the places they can work, rest, learn and worship.
28% more site visits. 97% more conversions. 196% more mobile applications completed. Best Employer Website in the 2023 RAD awards – championing the very best in employer branding. But this wasn’t just a new website – it’s a game-changing recruitment experience that turns interest into action, engagement into enlistment; transforming how the British Army connects with the next generation of recruits.
