THE CHALLENGE

Amidst a glaring 11% representation of Black or Latinx professionals in the financial services industry, T. Rowe Price, a leading asset management firm with a strong commitment to supporting communities of color, collaborated with Edelman on a strategic diversity talent acquisition program. The initiative needed to position T. Rowe Price as a desirable employer for Black and Latinx professionals in the financial service and technology sectors by leveraging a mix of owned and paid media on platforms such as LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram and targeting websites such as Blavity and We All Grow Latina.

The strategy also needed to validate T. Rowe's commitment to the employer marketing program and, in turn, make a compelling case for ongoing budget allocation. To fulfill this, the Edelman DXI team established a dedicated measurement workstream,precisely quantifying the program's effectiveness in enticing potential under-represented minority candidates to actively pursue roles within the organization.

THE APPROACH

To showcase the impact of the employer marketing program at T. Rowe Price, we faced the challenge of linking media activations to job application data. Although job application data was accessible through Workday, the technology across media channels didn't uniformly track exposure to program media before applying.

To account for this, the team filled in data gaps by leveraging our core CM3 offering in econometrics. Implementing available aggregate media and application data over time demonstrated the program's impact without the need for direct trackable media setups. This granular approach established the program’s overall impact while providing insights into specific activations.

THE MEASUREMENT

We worked closely with T. Rowe Price to gather relevant data on owned and paid media elements within the campaign, spanning news articles, social media posts and sponsored content. Simultaneously, the team meticulously compiled data on job applications for all candidates, with a specific focus on under-represented minority candidates. 

To analyze the impact, we devised a robust regression-based CM3 model, adept at capturing trends and quantifying the surge in under-represented minority applications attributable to the campaign. This model, designed to accommodate the non-linear candidate journey, offered a distinct advantage by controlling for untrackable factors, circumventing the limitations of linear attribution methods. 

The CM3 model precisely quantified the influence of each marketing program channel, delineating the number of applications and the growth in applications attributable to the campaign, both among under-represented minority candidates and the broader candidate pool. This rigorous approach provided a comprehensive understanding of the campaign's efficacy, allowing for targeted optimization strategies and informed decision-making.

THE OUTCOME

The employer marketing program demonstrated a compelling impact, driving a remarkable 22% of job applications from under-represented candidates within the specified timeframe. This validated the client’s investment and instilled confidence among stakeholders. In presentations to key stakeholders, the T. Rowe Price team effectively mobilized these results to garner support for ongoing and expanded budget allocations, emphasizing the program's success in achieving its objectives. 

Furthermore, the impact reports offered invaluable channel-specific insights, pinpointing the most effective avenues for attracting applications from under-represented minority candidates. This strategic information empowered the client to refine the program by allocating resources to high-performing channels and adapting or de-prioritizing less effective ones. Notably, a revelation of Instagram's potency in reaching under-represented minority potential candidates prompted internal advocacy for additional budget and content on this impactful channel. 

In essence, DXI showcased the success of T. Rowe Price's targeted employer marketing program in cultivating a more diverse talent pool and provided concrete evidence to secure the program’s financial future. The results underscored its commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion while reinforcing the program's effectiveness in realizing these objectives.