The CEAs are an award program designed by ERE.net to recognize outstanding achievement in recruitment advertising and marketing. Each year, recruitment ad agencies and corporate recruiting departments from around the world enter their best creative advertising campaigns. The entries are judged by a panel of the finest creative and professional talent from across the country, of which I was one.
Now that the 2014 winners have been announced, here are some lessons we can draw from the best and most creative, which you can use to improve your own recruiting in 2015.
Employees like to be the star of the show
Dutch bank ABN AMRO launched an internal campaign that encouraged employees to “Be Outspoken” and which used the tagline “Do Tell.” To reinforce this concept, one morning the company had employees met be a photographer and an interview at the front door, and were asked about their “secret” talents. The photos were immediately added to a digital display for the next arriving employees to see. ABN AMBRO’s video shows the workers flattered and smiling as they talked about their strengths, hobbies, and passions. The result was a top-three finish for the CEA’s Best Multimedia Campaign.
Another Dutch company, KPN created a recruitment campaign that made candidates, not employees, feel incredibly special. The wireless carrier “sifted through” job candidates’ social media profiles and produced personal videos starring children, who challenged candidates to help create technology for the next generation. The kids also referred to hobbies, travels, and volunteer work of their subjects, making little jokes along the way. The call to action was to enroll in KPN’s famous Business Course. I’ve never seen anything quite like this and KPN deserves its award in the Interactive Media award.
Employee Referral Programs don’t have to be boring
I’ve long crusaded against the dull “refer a friend and get a Starbucks gift card” method of employee referral programs. UPS (a frequent star) and APAC Customer Services have taken the ERP to new and exciting places.
The winners of the APAC referral program received two tickets to a Zac Brown Band concert, so the company tailored all their materials to song titles and lyrics from the band. The messaging was eerily perfect: “Jump Right In,” “You Get What You Give,” “Who Knows.” Instruments and microphones formed the designed of all the flyers and posters. It was a very clever way to unify the ERP and to make it relevant to employees, as the concert date became a kind of countdown that increased the urgency and excitement.
UPS created a “Lighten the Load” referral program for their peak season. The suite of materials included a special, responsive website where employees could learn more about the program and register for prizes. Or employees could enroll in the program via SMS, which I love. UPS provided workers with “handshake cards” so they could easily refer anyone they met at any time. A very robust and employee-friendly program all around, which took first place in the CEA Referral Program category.
Imaginative campaigns attract imaginative candidates
The ingenuity of some of the CEA entrants truly inspired me. The Social Media Marketing winner was BP, which created a “weekly playlist,” on Facebook, featuring a different sort of content for each day of the week: Monday highlighted photographs from BP’s locations around the world (where candidates might end up); Tuesday offered multiple-choice questions that tested general knowledge that was relevant to a career at BP; Wednesday provided tips for candidates applying for a job at BP. The content including videos and employees testimonials, and was very fun and shareable. The result was huge engagement every day of the week. I took BP to task for not fully dealing with its 2010 oil spill as an employer, but I can now say the company has recovered and is engaging job-seekers in innovative ways.
In a similar vein, the Best Multimedia Campaign award went to Accenture’s “Mission Control,” which promoted a 48-hour “experience event, learning opportunity, and assessment center” for students. Accenture started with 10 “Mini Missions,” such as brain teasers, riddles, and satellite image clues that were posted across the company’s social channels. Students gave their solutions through a tweet or a Facebook comment.
Then came the “multimedia” part. Accenture created the pieces for a cardboard record player, which gave their engineering audience something tangible to construct. It required the students to set up the device and manually turn the record at the right speed to hear the top-secret message, which was to go to a website. The final phase of the promotion encouraged students to send missions to their friends via social media. The messages included a video of the record player, to show off that aspect of the campaign to as many people as possible. The result was almost 1,000 applications to the Mission Control event, and I’m pleased to say that 58% of the applicants to this science and engineering event were female.
Recruitment advertising continues to evolve
The winner of the best-in-show Dansker Prize was Seagate for its unique art and copy in “The Dreamer” recruiting initiative. Seagate shows that recruitment advertising can be beautiful and lyrical, no matter what your organization does or makes or sells. It’s a good lesson for all of us.
ERE also gave Creative Excellence Awards in mobile marketing, diversity marketing, print media, college advertising, and more. Some of the campaigns were truly remarkable and should inspire you to create fun, challenging, unique promotions for your own HR and hiring needs. As a judge, I got a detailed looks at all the entries, and I’d love to share my experience with your organization to help you attract the candidates you want.
Jody Ordioni is President of Brandemix.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
