Knight Frank

Early Careers Campaign

How a premium real estate brand won over the next generation of talent in unexpected ways.

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Applications

+53%

Diversity Applications

+65%

Clicks to Microsite

+17,000

The challenge

Knight Frank, a global real estate consultancy, has firmly established itself in the luxury market. It’s steeped in tradition, backed by a proud legacy, and ready for what’s next. Their employer brand was built on this. Except for one problem. For the next generation of talent, Knight Frank was a name everyone knew. But the range of opportunities behind the name? Not so much.

So, how do you win over a socially savvy audience that values autonomy over everything and is focused on the future? How do you cut through the noise to catch their attention and keep it? And how do you resonate with candidates from diverse backgrounds, including students with and without real estate degrees?

Simple. You do what hasn’t been done before.

The solution

Knight Frank had already laid strong foundations with its employer brand, Build Beyond Today. But connecting with younger talent meant pushing it further – bringing to life what truly sets the business apart: its independence. With no shareholders to answer to, Knight Frank can put its people first. That became the heart of our campaign.

But one thing stood in the way. The careers website, the central hub for all campaign activity, wasn’t doing the job. It lacked personality, energy, and the user experience needed to engage early-career audiences and showcase the brand’s culture.

So we rebuilt it from the ground up.

A bespoke photoshoot was commissioned to make Knight Frank graduates – from both property and non-property backgrounds – the face of our campaign. Confident, warm, direct-to-camera shots ramped up the relatability factor while also cementing their positioning as a genuinely diverse employer, with representation across gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic backgrounds. And the language followed suit. It echoed what the culture promised – a career built on a partnership, where the focus was always on people before profit. But what really brought this vision to life was the behind-the-scenes style video content that gave our users an insight into what it means to be a part of this partnership.

And then, we pushed the idea further.

A competition built for Gen Z

With a social-first, influencer-backed competition that lets Gen Z do what they do best: create. The brief was to ‘Design your dream property’. One that solves a real-world problem, be it sustainability, accessibility or social impact.

To meet our audience where they already were, we activated on platforms untouched by employer branding but perfectly aligned with their interests – Twitch, home to 36 million users aged 16–24, and The Sims, where 60% of players are women aged 18–24.

Influencers had to be cherry-picked to support the credibility of the campaign. Extensive research concluded with Ebonix, a top Sims creator and DE&I advocate and Matt SmithWood, a design influencer with BBC credentials, being the faces of the campaign.

A £3,000 prize raised the stakes. And by activating boldly on Ploy – a platform built specifically for early-career audiences – Knight Frank became one of the first real estate brands to show up meaningfully in this space.

The competition launched with its own microsite, supported by a smart mix of paid and organic content across multiple platforms. Every asset was research-led and channel-specific, from video teasers and UGC to behind-the-scenes moments and influencer drops.

Entries came in fast – from Sims, Roblox and Minecraft builds to PDFs, sketches, and AI-generated designs. Each one a snapshot of the ambition and creativity of the next generation.

Results

The impact was immediate. Awareness surged. Applications rose – especially from more diverse candidate groups. And the campaign outperformed across every channel:

• 241% increase in career site traffic from the previous year
• 63% increase in applications from ethnic minority students
• 13.8 million TikTok views with 99.9% clicks coming from 18–24-year-olds
• 235K+ impressions for the competition alone
• 34,940 sessions on the ‘Apply Now’ page

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Wates

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Applications

7918

Candidates Assessed

343

Offers Made

117