Georgia State Patrol
Established in 1937 as a division of the Georgia Department of Public Safety, the Georgia State Patrol (GSP) served to patrol highways, enforcing traffic laws and investigating car crashes throughout Georgia. Since its founding, GSP has supported all the state’s public safety efforts to reduce criminal activity, apprehend offenders, and respond to both natural and manmade disasters.
Today, GSP reaches across the state with nine geographic troops and nine specialized units maintaining a total of 52 patrol posts. GSP units include Criminal Interdiction, Implied Consent, Motorcycle Unit, Crime Suppression Unit, Specialized Collision Reconstruction Team, Specialized Weapons and Tactics, GSP Dive Team, Governor’s Task Force, and the Regional K-9 Task Force.
GSP is also one of the nation’s top law enforcement agencies committed to advancing and using new technology. As part of this commitment, it was the first agency in the country to equip all of its patrol cars with dash-mounted cameras.
The Need
When Georgia State Patrol approached M&R in 2017, it was having difficulty attracting candidates to apply for its Trooper School. Its biggest hurdle was sending the message out to potential candidates that GSP offered a challenging career with a competitive salary and benefits to qualified applicants interested in becoming a state trooper. It also needed to push a message centered around diversity, encouraging people of any sex, age, or ethnicity to apply.
M&R was tasked with creating a marketing campaign that would reach target audiences and increase GSP’s number of class registrants.
The Solution
Our team launched a nine-city campaign to attract new troopers, focusing on traditional advertising methods, particularly billboards, banners, and print materials.
Our solutions included:
- Backdrops
- Banners
- Billboards
- Trifolds
The Results
While we were not able to track precise performance of our traditional advertising methods as we would digital advertising solutions, we and GSP were able to determine that our Trooper Recruitment campaign led to a 47% increase in the average number of applicants per day following the campaign’s launch.
