close to the work
An employer-brand campaign concept reframing Lilly's scale as proximity to real science — not distance from it.
category
Employer Brand
Background
concept
measurement
prepared by
Elizabeth Ponce
status
Concept Exercise
student concept — not affiliated with eli lilly and company
Why proximity, not scale
Eli Lilly is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, with deep local roots and a long-standing identity tied to scientific discovery. This concept focuses on corporate and employer-brand storytelling — why talented people should want to build a career here, and why the Indianapolis home base is part of that story rather than incidental to it.
Keeping the work at the employer-brand level avoids drug names, dosage, or efficacy claims entirely, so the exercise can focus on strategy and creative thinking without regulatory considerations.
Objective
audience
What the campaign is trying to do
Strengthen Lilly's reputation as a top employer for early-career scientific and technical talent, with a specific focus on retaining Indiana-based graduates who might otherwise leave for coastal biotech hubs.
In business terms: increase qualified applications from target university programs and improve employer-brand favorability scores among that segment over a two-quarter period.
Primary persona
Maya, 24 — recent graduate, chemistry
goal
Do research that visibly matters, not just process paperwork inside a massive company.
emotion
Torn between a safe offer and a nagging sense she'd be settling for invisible work.
Sample
barrier
Believes "big pharma" means bureaucracy, distant leadership, years before her work touches anything real.
where she looks
LinkedIn, professor and alumni networks, and campus recruiting.
social post — Instagram
"Big company. Small distance to the work that matters."
A 15-second clip of a real early-career employee describing one project they own
landing page
"Close to the work. Close to home."
CTA: See what people are actually working on. Real projects, real names, real proximity to science.
How success is tracked
Applications from target programs
Employer-brand favorability (survey)
Careers hub engagement
Direct measure of talent attraction lift
Whether the reframe shifted perception
Whether the proximity narrative is landing
What I'd test first
I'd test the video's opening line first. It assumes viewers already feel skeptical about big pharma and if that's not true for a given school, the message falls flat right away. I'd run two versions: one that leads with the skepticism, one that skips straight to the project story, and let the results show which one actually works.
This is a conceptual student exercise, not a real or authorized Eli Lilly campaign. No product names, dosages, efficacy, or safety claims appear anywhere in this work. All employee quotes and stories are illustrative for the exercise. Any real-world use would require full legal, HR, and brand review.
hero video — storyboard
"I thought I'd be one of thousands of names on an org chart."
Opens on downtown Indianapolis at sunrise, cuts into a lab. An early-career scientist's real voice carries the story into a whiteboard discussion with a senior researcher. Closing card: Close to the Work — Careers at Lilly, Indianapolis.
social post — university network
"You don't have to leave Indiana to do work that leaves the state."
Carousel: one slide per employee: what they're working on and why they stayed local.
reflection