Ploum: employer branding for next-gen legal talent

The talent problem in law

Law firms compete for the same small pool of high-potential talent every year. The strongest graduates have options. They are choosing not just a salary, not just a practice area; they are choosing a culture, a city, a version of their professional future. And they are making that choice based largely on what they can see.

Ploum's legal reputation is built on decades of excellent work. Their team culture, the particular quality of working in a firm with Rotterdam roots, genuine expertise, and a collegiate spirit, was real and distinct. But it wasn't visible. Not in the way that would reach a twenty-four-year-old deciding where to build their career.

DOT was brought in to change that.

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The brief: make a law firm feel human

Employer brand content for professional services firms has a well-documented failure mode: it looks like every other firm's employer brand content. Glass-fronted offices. Confident-looking people in expensive suits. Copy about 'dynamic teams' and 'exciting opportunities.' None of it differentiates. None of it makes you feel anything.

The brief for Ploum was different precisely because the firm is different. Rotterdam rather than Amsterdam. A team culture built on genuine collegiality rather than competitive pressure. Legal expertise that is recognised at the highest levels but communicated with the directness of a city that doesn't perform prestige, it earns it.

The content had to communicate all of this to an audience that has strong instincts for authenticity and strong defences against anything that feels manufactured.

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360°: hero film, photography, and platform-first distribution

DOT took ownership from concept to distribution. The creative strategy was built on three pillars that addressed the brief's different requirements.

The hero commercial anchors the campaign. It is built to create a feeling about Ploum before a graduate has read a single word of the job description: a cinematic, confident piece that communicates the culture, the city, and the quality of the work. Its job is to make the right person stop scrolling and feel something.

The photography suite was produced alongside the film, not as a separate commission. Using the same locations, the same people, the same visual language. The result is a visual identity that is consistent across every touchpoint: job boards, the Ploum website, LinkedIn, print. A firm whose visual presentation signals the same quality as its legal reputation.

Platform-first distribution meant that every piece of content was adapted for the context in which it would be seen; not resized, but rethought. LinkedIn content performs differently from Instagram content performs differently from a job board. DOT built versions for each, ensuring that the campaign reached legal talent wherever they spend their attention.

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What the campaign was built to do

Employer brand content for a law firm carries a specific burden: the firm's reputation for discretion, essential to client trust, can become a communication liability. The instinct toward restraint that serves Ploum's client relationships can make it harder to tell a compelling story to talent who have never worked there.

The campaign DOT built for Ploum solves this by making the people the story. Not the cases, not the clients, not the credentials; the individuals who chose Ploum and what that choice has meant for their careers. Authenticity is the counterweight to restraint. When real people speak honestly about a real culture, the content earns the trust that a polished promotional film never could.

The campaign elevates Ploum's employer brand to the level of its legal reputation. That alignment, between how the firm is regarded in the profession and how it presents itself to the next generation, is what the content was designed to create. And it gives every future piece of talent communication a foundation to build on.

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