Royal Navy
Recruiting a new generation to one of the world's oldest organisations.
For five years, I led digital creative for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines – shaping how the brand shows up across web and social to attract thousands of new recruits each year.
Director – Great State
Creative direction | Design | Digital platforms | Campaigns
Awareness wasn’t the problem
The task was to modernise how the Royal Navy presents itself to potential recruits – not just in campaigns, but across the whole digital experience.
Awareness was already there. The challenge was turning that into something people could actually see themselves in.
It meant making the brand feel more immediate and relatable, adapting the appeal to a broad array of audience needs.
My role
My role covered the overall creative direction across digital, but was fairly hands-on in practice.
I was closely involved across all output – from the underlying design systems through to campaigns, content and the product experience itself.
Working as the CD of the Royal Navy’s sole digital agency, I led the creative and experience side of the account – shaping the work at both a strategic level and in the detail, as it moved from idea through to execution.
Build something that could hold it all together
We developed a flexible digital system that could stretch across platforms, campaigns and day-to-day content without losing consistency.
It needed to work just as well for large campaign moments as it did for the constant flow of smaller, everyday content.
I set the direction for that and worked closely with teams to make sure it held together as the output scaled and evolved over time.
Submariner recruitment campaign casestudy
From platform to campaigns to content
The work spanned the main recruitment platform, campaign activity and an ongoing flow of social content throughout the year.
Rather than feeling like separate pieces, everything was designed to connect back to a consistent experience – whether someone landed on the site, saw a campaign, or encountered the brand through social.
One system, evolving over time
Over five years, the work shifted from individual outputs into something more cohesive.
The design system matured, the content approach developed, and internal teams became more confident in carrying the work forward – allowing the brand to show up more consistently across everything it did.
Support video played to new recruits on their first day of training.
One of many Role Videos to help potential recruits chose a role to apply for.
Over five years, the shift delivered a consistent 4% annual increase in on-site application conversions, alongside a 25% rise in traffic, with visits growing to over 9 million a year. Social audiences more than tripled as the content strategy took hold.
The work was recognised with multiple industry awards, including The Times ‘Best Graduate Recruitment’ award and a Grand Prix at both the Webby and the Digital Impact Awards for digital transformation.
