The campaign conceptualised by
Innocean Worldwide aims to position the job portal as not just a job
provider, but also a career enhancement company. The innovative campaign
grabbed eyeballs and evoked mixed reactions
TVC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0LKKk0hEFw
Conceptualised
by Innocean Worldwide, the TimesJobs campaign launched on July 27 has
grabbed a lot of attention on social media. As the part of the
integrated campaign, a print ad, OOH, social media initiative and a
television commercial were launched. Two teasers were also launched to
build curiosity among viewers ahead of the commercial.
In the teasers, a girl, in a ‘pleasing’
voice, says, ‘I spent some time with CEO’. She then looks down, takes a
pause and says, ‘…and got a promotion’, suggesting that she got a
promotion as she associated herself with the CEO. The print ad goes the
same way. The ad depicts a woman who ‘spent some time with the CEO and
got a promotion’.
The ad, at first instance, seems to be cheesy, but has a witty twist attached to it. Most of us would first think ‘the other way round’ and form opinions. Then comes the humorous part in the ad: For Times Jobs, CEO stands for ‘Career Enhancement Officer’! This was intended to mark the transition of TimesJobs from being a mere job portal to a career adviser.
The social media buzz and the interest of people in a rather unusual hashtag #IndiasMostLovedCEO made it trend on Twitter on the day of the launch. Interesting guesses were seen floating on who could be this most-loved CEO of India with some witty exchanges too.
After the teaser, the company launched a
full-fledged commercial where not just females but also males had a role
to play. In the commercial, two girls fooled a man by telling him of
getting a promotion with the help of the CEO. They incite the man to go
to the CEO and ask for a promotion. The man goes to the CEO and asks for
a promotion but the CEO shouts at him instead. Towards the end of the
film, the girls let out the abbreviation of CEO as ‘Career Enhancement
Officer’ and have their share of laugh.
Saurabh Dasgupta
Saurabh Dasgupta, National Creative
Director, Innocean Worldwide, said, “Our effort has been to bring alive
the advantages career-seekers can get by getting the CEO – Career
Enhancement Office – on their side. The users of the site are mature
career builders who are looking at real world insights and not some
verbiage. Hence we have stayed true to the product promise and
strengths.”
Dasgupta added, “The pun is around the right ‘CEO’ and spending time with the CEO or taking help from the CEO.”
The marketing objective was sharpened to
relaunch the portal with a new feel and purpose. It also highlights
specific aspects of TimesJobs such as company reviews, salary
benchmarking, interview insights and skill assessment, going beyond
other competitors’ offerings.
Nilanjan Roy
Nilanjan Roy, Head of Strategy, Times
Business Solutions, said, “Now the job seekers want to take decisions
based on long-term growth and not short-term gains. Aspects such as
company culture, work-life balance, career growth prospects, role
adaptability and role transitions, all play a significant part in making
career choices. TimesJobs has transformed to address their needs.”
Innocean undertook the task with a deep
dive into the mind of the prospects, which included both the career
seekers and the career providers as in heads of HR and talent
acquisition. Their needs and the product’s key aspects were cross mapped
for synergies to arrive at the insight that would propel the brand
forward.
Vikas Deep Verma
Vikas Deep Verma, Product and Marketing
Head, TimesJobs, said, “High-performance professionals who may not be
looking for jobs still actively seek resources that provide them
intelligence around companies, provide personal skill assessments, give
interview insights and benchmark their salary against industry norms. We
have pivoted to provide all these services into one complete solution.
We also provide the largest collection of jobs if they do decide to
actively pursue a change.”
The Twitter Troll
‘Did no one at TimesJobs proof this ad before it was released?’ asked one Twitter user.
The ad was presumably being clever about
using the abbreviation CEO not as chief executive officer but as Career
Enhancement Officer – a term that the company used to describe itself in
the copy. But social media users didn’t see it that way. The copy
seemed to suggest a woman boasting that she’d go ahead by associating
with the Chief Executive Officer.
The conversation soon snowballed into a
discussion about other instances of sexism by the company and whether it
was an error on the part of the ad agency or TimesJobs itself.
Vivek Srivastava
Countering the troll over Twitter, Vivek
Srivastava, Jt. Managing Director, Innocean Worldwide, said, “The intent
of this campaign is single-minded: establish TimesJobs equal to the
CEO, i.e., Career Enhancement Officer. The usage of CEO is meant to make
it impactful. No hidden meaning or intonations. Any intent to call it
sexist or some such thing is purely motivated and in bad taste. I would
go a step further and say it exposes the misogynist mind of the person
commenting in this vain. CEOs can be women or men these days. They meet,
travel or hold discussions with their juniors and colleagues regardless
of their gender. I have personally had the privilege of working and
interacting with a woman boss for quite a while but a thought like this
never crossed my mind.”
Further strengthening his point of view,
Srivastava added, “I think those trolling show the petty thinking they
harbour that stereotypes women and their corporate existence in an
undesirable fashion. A clean, witty, purpose-driven communication with a
defined objective of redefining the acronym CEO as Career Enhancement
Officer needn’t be given this uncalled for filter of sexism.”
Mixed reaction from experts
BestMediaInfo spoke to some experts in the
field to gauge their opinion on the ad campaign and also the way it is
trending on social media.
Asheesh Sethi
Asheesh Sethi, Founder, Jaldiad.com and
Noshe Group, said, “What I feel on the face of it is that advertising is
something where whatever gets noticeability and attention is good
advertising, even if you play with words and get an impact, irrespective
of the implicit meaning. TimesJobs has been able to create a noise in
the market. The object was to create interest in the campaign. TimesJobs
has not presented anybody on the wrong side. It’s just that you may
draw your own inferences. As long as you are able to raise an eyebrow,
get attention towards the brand and get it noticed, it is good
advertising. It’s a very clever idea and a very creative way of putting
things across.”
Amit Damani
Amit Damani, Co-Founder, Pixel Fox Studios,
commented, “I just had a laugh about it. Our mind works to find double
meanings in everything that we hear or see. We feel that the marketing
strategy has worked for the brand. In the era that we are in, there is a
double meaning in everything that we say or write. This marketing
strategy may not have sent the right message but has surely brought
about some hardcore publicity. Like they say, any publicity, negative or
positive, is good for a brand. The ad has been differently done. It’s
quite a bold approach for a job portal advertisement.”
Ramanujam Sridhar, Founder and CEO of brand-comm, said, “One should not worry about what is happening on social media as there are a lot of people who are underemployed. It’s just a clever way of advertising. Young people have a good sense of humour. The brand is just trying to be smart. They are trying to make a proposition and giving a new definition to CEO. If humour has any chance of success, then it is with the younger people. Older people sometimes don’t understand the humour. If I were the client, I would have bought the idea from the creative agency. I don’t find any major issue with the idea of the campaign. Without the implicit CEO intent, the commercial would have come out flat.”
Some did not like it
But the ad did not go down well with a few from the creative fraternity.
Anupama Ramaswamy
Anupama Ramaswamy, Executive Creative
Director, Dentsu Creative Impact, said, “Well, I really think people
need to spend more time on strategy than opting for some cheap tactics
like this. Totally dislike the whole series. It has been done to get
eyeballs but how? The whole spending time with CEO and CEO wanting to
give someone a raise just doesn’t cut it for me. It leaves quite bad
taste instead. The whole ad fraternity is trying to become more and more
gender sensitive and here we are still stuck in the 1980s. C’mon, can
we all grow up a bit? Of course, the whole renaming of the CEO or
calling TimesJob the CEO could have definitely been done more tastefully
and a bit sensitively. People would have taken it in a wrong sense and
that must have been the intention too. To get attention and then say
‘Oh, we meant otherwise’! Again, we all need to grow up and be more
responsible in our communication.”
Nisha Singhania
Nisha Singhania, Co-founder and Director,
Infectious, commented, “Honestly speaking, why are we assuming that a
CEO can only be a man? They have tried to create a sensation. It is much
like the Tehelka kind of news. But to my mind, you should not give it
any importance. These kinds of ads should be ignored. It’s no big deal.
Anybody could be a CEO. If they are trying to promote the most-loved
CEO, then is promotion the only thing for which you love your CEO? This
ad doesn’t deserve the kind of attention it is receiving. The most-loved
CEO has nothing to say about the product.”
http://www.timesjobs.com/ceo/?utm_source=YT_C2A&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=CEO_C2A
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