There are highly-paid glamour jobs in flying. These are mostly offered by commercial airlines. But the Royal Flying Doctor Service (Queensland Section) (RFDS) would not be able to provide life-saving care to those who live in regional, rural and remote communities without its pilots. And currently, it is experiencing a pilot shortage.
To address this, Cummins&Partners’ creative platform, Life Off Autopilot, gave 20 pilots a challenge, experiencing what attracted them to flying in the first place.
The world of an RFDS pilot is unpredictable, exhilarating and the purest test of your flying abilities, as you could be flying into a big airport one day and landing on a highway the next. Not only that, you are flying the latest aircraft and playing a pivotal role in saving the lives of Australians. To highlight this lifestyle, the life-affirming work and the career satisfaction a pilot with RFDS can have, Cummins&Partners partnered with director and photographer, Andrew Englisch, from SAFARI to spend a few days in the life of an RFDS pilot to demonstrate how different their world is from the routine of a commercial pilot.
In just the first 3 days of the campaign, over 130 pilots applied to work at RFDS and this number continues to grow with more than 365 applications.
Cummins&Partners CCO, Sean Cummins commented, “Life off Autopilot isn’t just a platform, but a challenge to pilots. With highly targeted and emotive creative, we were able to reach pilots in those rare moments of contemplation and introspection at airports in between domestic flights and in their down time on LinkedIn and social media.”
RFDS (Queensland Section) executive general manager commercial and corporate affairs, Carole Tokody, added, “We know how incredible our pilots are and how unique their day to day is. It was important that this campaign accurately reflects the immense value RFDS pilots bring to regional and remote communities, and I think we’ve achieved that significantly with Life off Autopilot’”
The work has won the agency an expanded remit with the client with more work coming out in the coming months.
Credits:
Client: RFDS Queensland Section
Director & Photographer: Andrew Englisch, SAFARI
Creative Agency: Cummins&Partners
General Manager: Katherine Chen
Chief Creative Officer: Sean Cummins
Executive Creative Director: Brendan Willenberg
Executive Producer: Steven Tortosa
Account Director: Lily O’Connell
Art Director: Alice Tran
Senior Retoucher: Ed Croll
Studio Manager: Emma Shaw
