The campaign was released on the first Class Pay Gap Day with the aim to tackle workplace classism. The creative film is based on the idea often proposed by employers to justify workplace classism, that middle-class employees have more ‘polish’ than their working-class peers.

Creative agency, Creature, devised an integrated video campaign for a fictional product ‘Class Polish’ to highlight the ridiculous idea that accent has any correlation with ability. It features comedian, Fern Brady as she imitates a historic television advertisement for the product.

Adi Hussain, junior creative at Creature, says, “Classism in the workplace is such a complicated problem, and we needed a simple creative solution: something that wrapped everything up in a way that made immediate sense. That’s where ‘class polish’ came in. Inspired in part by the BBC documentary, How to Break into the Elite, we took the fact that employers often claim people from working class backgrounds ‘lack polish’ and ran with it.”

The campaign is based on extensive research conducted by the government which surveyed 300,000 Civil Servants. It found that staff who were promoted were likely to be from privileged backgrounds, have the right accent, have an emotionally detached or understated manner, and an intellectual approach to culture and politics. Further research highlighted how those from working-class backgrounds earn an estimated £6k less than their middle-class colleagues.  

Dan Cullen-Shute, CEO at Creature says, “At Creature, we want to leave the industry better than we found it, and we firmly believe that tackling social mobility is at the heart of that. So, it’s been a genuine honour to work with the Department for Opportunities on this project. The Class Pay Gap is real, and it’s incredibly damaging, and it needs to be closed. We’re proud to be part of a campaign to help do just that.”

The campaign will be supported with impactful OOH and print assets inspired by the package design. The ‘Class Polish’ video will also be sent to influential figures in government, business and media to campaign for action. It will be supported by cinema, TV and social throughout November.