Surrey Police Service partnered with BrndWrx to launch Redefining Policing, a 2024 Canadian recruitment film that generated 551,000 impressions and 300+ hires.
ARCHIVESurrey Police Service Bets on Narrative to Win Canada's Toughest Recruitment Market
Redefining Policing is a 2024 Canadian public-service recruitment campaign created by BrndWrx for Surrey Police Service, designed to attract qualified officers to a newly independent municipal force during its historic transition away from RCMP jurisdiction in British Columbia.
Surrey Police Service launched the campaign in November 2024, a month of institutional significance. As reported by Surreypolice Ca, SPS formally assumed jurisdiction as Surrey's primary police service on November 29, 2024, making the timing of the campaign not incidental but structural. The film arrived precisely when the organisation needed to project legitimacy, momentum, and identity to a sceptical professional audience. At the time of publication, SPS had recruited 475 of its target of 785 officers, leaving approximately 310 positions requiring candidates, according to Clapboard's editorial review of available agency documentation.
The campaign carries a single organising idea: "Join What's Next." That line does more than invite applications. It positions SPS not as a replacement institution but as a forward-facing alternative, one built around progressive policing culture, modern operational technology, and innovation. In the Canadian public-service advertising landscape, where recruitment communications tend toward the procedural, that framing is a strategic choice with creative consequences. The campaign spans content, digital, and film media formats and was produced as a single cohesive media asset — a recruitment film anchored by a broader campaign concept and a targeted media strategy developed entirely by BrndWrx, which served as both advertising agency and production company.
The geographic market is specifically British Columbia, with the City of Surrey as the primary audience context. Surrey is one of Canada's fastest-growing municipalities, and SPS's mandate to police it independently from the RCMP represents one of the more consequential institutional shifts in Canadian law enforcement in recent decades. Redefining Policing is the public face of that shift.
Surrey Police Service entered the recruitment market in a position few public institutions face: competing for trained officers while simultaneously building the organisation those officers would join. The strategic challenge BrndWrx faced was not simply generating awareness but convincing experienced policing professionals to leave established forces for a service still establishing itself. In Canada, where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police remains the dominant federal and provincial policing brand, that is a significant credibility gap to close through advertising.
BrndWrx's response was to treat the transition itself as a differentiator rather than a liability. The "Join What's Next" concept reframes the unfinished nature of SPS as an invitation rather than a warning. Officers are not being recruited into an institution with a fixed culture and established hierarchy; they are being recruited into a founding moment. That narrative logic targets a specific psychological profile within the candidate pool: professionals who are motivated by agency, innovation, and the opportunity to shape a culture rather than inherit one.
The media strategy reflects equally precise thinking. According to brndwrx.com, the campaign used geo-fenced digital placements concentrated around key police stations in British Columbia and Alberta. This targeting approach prioritises proximity and professional context over broad reach, directing messaging toward people already working in or adjacent to policing environments. It is a media decision that treats the placement itself as part of the message: SPS is recruiting from within the profession, not casting wide for career-changers.
The competitive landscape in Canadian municipal policing recruitment includes established forces such as the Vancouver Police Department and the Edmonton Police Service, both of which carry decades of institutional history and defined employer brands. SPS cannot compete on heritage. BrndWrx's strategy is to compete on narrative, positioning the absence of legacy as a form of freedom. Whether that reframe holds credibility with experienced officers is the central strategic wager the campaign makes.
Rich Murray directed the Redefining Policing film for Surrey Police Service. Murray worked alongside Creative Director and Copywriter JJ Moreno, Art Director Jason Walters, and Account Director Kia Jelveh, with BrndWrx functioning as the integrated agency and production company throughout.
The creative task facing this team was precise and difficult. A recruitment film for a public institution operates under constraints that commercial advertising does not share. The audience is professional and sceptical. The subject matter — policing — carries cultural weight that shifts depending on who is watching. And the organisation being represented is, at the time of production, still incomplete. The film cannot depict a fully formed institution because one does not yet exist. It must make a credible promise about what SPS will become while remaining honest about where it is.
The "Join What's Next" concept gives the creative team a stable platform from which to navigate that tension. Rather than presenting SPS through the visual grammar of established police forces — hierarchies, ceremonies, decades of service — the film appears to orient its imagery and tone toward possibility and forward motion. The campaign's message territory, as documented by BrndWrx's own account of the project on brndwrx.com, includes progressive policing culture, modern operational technology, and innovation. These are not incidental descriptors. They function as creative briefs embedded in the campaign rationale.
The decision to produce a single media asset rather than a suite of executions is itself a craft choice. It concentrates the creative argument. One film, made well, with a coherent point of view, carries more authority in the context of institutional recruitment than a fragmented campaign spread across formats. For a police service still building its own authority, that formal discipline mirrors the message: SPS knows what it stands for. The film attempts to prove it.
ARCHIVESurrey Police Service's Redefining Policing campaign produced verifiable performance data. According to brndwrx.com, the campaign generated more than 25,000 organic views, 551,000 total impressions, and resulted in more than 300 hires. These are the figures BrndWrx attributes to the campaign in their own published account of the work.
Those numbers require contextual reading. The 300-plus hires figure is the most significant. At the time of publication, SPS had recruited 475 of a required 785 officers, according to documentation reviewed by Clapboard. If the campaign contributed materially to 300 additional placements, it would represent a substantial share of the remaining shortfall. Recruitment campaigns in the public-service category are rarely measured against hiring outcomes this directly, which makes the attribution — if accurate — an unusually strong performance claim for the sector.
The 551,000 impressions figure reflects the campaign's geo-fenced media strategy targeting British Columbia and Alberta police environments, as reported by brndwrx.com. Organic views exceeding 25,000 for a single recruitment film in a professional niche suggest the content resonated beyond paid distribution channels, which is structurally consistent with a film that prioritises narrative quality over volume production.
Clapboard scores Redefining Policing at 57 out of 100. The score reflects a campaign that achieves its recruitment objectives with strategic coherence and measurable outcomes, but whose creative ambition — anchored in a single asset and a single concept — does not fully transcend the functional brief. The film does what it needs to do. The question Clapboard's score raises is whether doing what is needed is the same as doing something creatively necessary.
Redefining Policing is a 2024 Canadian recruitment campaign created by BrndWrx for Surrey Police Service. It uses a single recruitment film built around the concept "Join What's Next" to attract qualified officers to SPS during its transition from RCMP-administered policing to an independent municipal police service in British Columbia.
BrndWrx created the campaign, serving as both advertising agency and production company. Rich Murray directed the film. JJ Moreno led creative direction and copywriting, Jason Walters served as Art Director, and Kia Jelveh served as Account Director, according to Clapboard's production credits record.
According to brndwrx.com, the campaign generated more than 25,000 organic views and 551,000 total impressions. BrndWrx also reports more than 300 hires attributed to the campaign. SPS had a target of 785 officers and had recruited 475 at the time of the campaign's November 2024 launch.
SPS formally assumed jurisdiction as Surrey's primary police service on November 29, 2024, as reported by surreypolice.ca. The campaign launched at the same moment to project institutional legitimacy and attract the remaining officers needed to reach SPS's full complement of 785 sworn personnel across British Columbia.
BrndWrx used geo-fenced digital placements concentrated around key police stations in British Columbia and Alberta, according to brndwrx.com. This approach targeted working policing professionals rather than broad audiences, treating placement proximity to police environments as a strategic signal aligned with the campaign's professional recruitment objective.
Clapboard scores Redefining Policing at 57 out of 100. The rating reflects strategic coherence and measurable recruitment outcomes, while noting that the campaign's single-asset, single-concept structure, though disciplined, does not fully elevate the work beyond the functional requirements of the brief it serves.
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