How We Helped York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Recruit the Region's Business Leaders — On Camera

Most public sector video briefs arrive with a communications objective that's relatively straightforward. Explain a policy. Document a project. Show the public what's being built and why it matters.

The brief from York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority was different. They didn't need content that communicated something to the public. They needed content that persuaded some of the region's most senior business leaders to put their names — and their time — to something new.

The something new was the Business Board. A newly formed body bringing together business leaders from across York and North Yorkshire to advise the Mayor, David Skaith, on strategy and policy that would shape the region's economic future. The Board was designed to give the private sector a genuine voice in decisions that would affect them — and to attract people with real standing in their fields, not just willing volunteers.

That's a harder sell than it might sound. CEOs and managing directors of established businesses don't give their time lightly. A letter from the Combined Authority would be read and filed. A video needed to do something more — communicate the purpose of the Board with enough clarity and credibility that the right people would sit up, take notice, and apply.

The Challenge

The communications challenge here was essentially one of trust and relevance. The target audience — senior business leaders across the region — are busy, commercially-minded people with well-developed instincts for what's worth their time and what isn't. They needed to understand, quickly and clearly, three things.

What the Business Board actually is and why it exists. What joining it would require of them. And — most importantly — why it was worth it.

A dry explainer video would answer the first two questions and lose them on the third. What the brief required was content that conveyed both the significance of the initiative and the genuine opportunity it represented for business leaders who wanted to shape the region's economic direction from the inside.

The Approach

We worked with the Combined Authority's communications team to develop a video that put the Mayor's voice and the Board's purpose front and centre — while keeping the tone direct and the language firmly in the world of its target audience.

This wasn't content made for a general public who needed things simplified. It was content made for people who understand strategy, governance, and the value of a seat at the right table. The tone needed to reflect that — authoritative without being bureaucratic, ambitious without being vague.

The shoot took place at multiple locations based over a number of differnt companies, days and locations across the region, we had Mayor David Skaith speaking directly to the camera in Selby — to the business leaders the video was designed to reach. The framing was deliberately uncluttered. No graphics-heavy production, no voiceover narration, no corporate stock footage. Just a clear, credible message delivered with genuine conviction about what the Board could achieve and why the right people needed to be part of it.

The result was a clean, confident piece of content that communicated the purpose of the Business Board in terms that a CEO or managing director would immediately understand and find credible.

What the Video Needed to Do — and What It Did

A recruitment video for a public sector advisory body has a very specific job. It needs to attract people who are already successful — who have no obvious reason to take on additional responsibility — and make the case that this particular commitment is worth making.

The Business Board's purpose gave us strong material to work with. The Board was created to provide a strong and independent business voice to the region, advising the Combined Authority and the Mayor on strategy and policy to unlock the region's economic potential. That's a genuine opportunity for business leaders who want to influence decisions that affect their sector — not a box-ticking exercise, but a body with real advisory power over real economic policy.

The video communicated that distinction clearly. The response was a Board that now comprises thirteen members drawn from sectors including food and drink, manufacturing, hospitality, creative industries, rail engineering, bioeconomy, retail, and digital — representing the full breadth of York and North Yorkshire's business community.

That's a strong outcome. And it's an outcome that required content that was trusted, credible, and made in a way that respected the intelligence and experience of its audience.

What This Means for Your Organisation

If you work in public sector communications, you'll recognise the challenge the Combined Authority faced. The brief wasn't technically complex — it was a single video, shot over multiple days, with a clear message. But it required a production partner who understood what the content needed to achieve and how to achieve it in a way that would land with a demanding audience.

That's a different requirement from commissioning photography for a public engagement campaign or video for a planning consultation. It requires an understanding of how senior business audiences think, what they respond to, and what they dismiss.

It also requires something more straightforward — the ability to make a busy Mayor and a senior communications team feel that the shoot was in safe hands. That nothing would be wasted, that the days where we did shoot would run efficiently, and that the content delivered would do the job it was commissioned to do.

If you're planning content for a public sector initiative — whether that's a recruitment campaign, a stakeholder engagement piece, or a major public communications project — we're happy to have a conversation about what the right approach might look like.

No obligation. Just a proper chat.

Find out more about how we work with government and public sector organisations.