Success Stories: New York Police Department

The New York Police Department (NYPD) was looking for new ways to reach recruits for their vaunted Cadets program. Candidates needed to be between 18 and 21 years old, residents of New York City, full-time college juniors or seniors with both credit and GPA requirements and earning a minimum of twelve credits a semester at accredited colleges in NYC, Nassau and Westchester counties.

Hodes knows this is a digitally savvy audience and one that uses mobile phones particularly heavily. We proposed a local mobile marketing campaign that would add an innovative mobile interface to the typical college posters. NYPD recruitment campaigns had always included information about the program benefits and requirements with tear-off tags at the bottom that included a phone number and campaign-specific website. Updating the concept for the digital generation, we added a 2D barcode that candidates could scan with their phones to instantly receive the same information.

The results were stunning. In just over two semesters, over 2,260 contacts were added to the database, of which 1,541 were first-time candidates and 694 of those—over a fourth—had registered via mobile.

More Success Stories: