Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) has launched its 2019 recruitment campaign, which places the organisation's wide range of capabilities centre stage.
The campaign concept was devised by Ben Smith and Luke Hawkins of Brand Council and the post production company was Clockwork Films.
By capturing the essence of a firefighter's role, and visually showcasing the idea that FRNSW do so much more than fight fires, the campaign highlights FRNSW's commitment to protecting the irreplaceable, no matter the situation.
Led by a 60-second film titled 'FRNSW Prepared for Anything', the campaign showcases the fire and rescue services that are largely unknown to the public, including swift-water rescue, urban search and rescue, road crash rescue, hazardous material management, natural disaster response, and fire education and prevention activities.
The captivating film was followed by the 'More than Fire' video series, which demonstrated the diversity of the FRNSW workforce and the huge amount of opportunities within it. These videos provide a window into individual firefighters' personalities, passions and interests outside of firefighting, revealing the human side of the organisation that the public relies on so strongly.
The films highlight the organisation's overriding purpose - to enhance community safety, quality of life, and confidence by minimising the impact of hazards and emergency incidents on the people, property, environment and economy of NSW.
While FRNSW is one of the most skilled and highly regarded urban firefighting organisations in the world, acting chief superintendent Brendan Cox said current insights and brand surveys indicated that there were inaccurate perceptions of what firefighters do.
Says Cox: "FRNSW attends to fires and explosions every day. However in addition to this, 19% of responses attended in 2017-18 were non-fire related calls. Of these, 25% were HAZMAT calls and 8% were storms, floods, natural disasters or assistance calls to other emergency service agencies. Therefore, we decided to utilise our recruitment campaign as a platform to showcase the real faces of our firefighters and our capabilities beyond fighting fire."
By highlighting the extended skills of the organisation, the poignant video campaign allows the public to better understand and appreciate the myriad of ways that FRNSW protects the community.