Will TV kill the internet star or will Jobsite make it as a TV star?

Jobsite last week announced a £15 million pound brand campaign which include extensive TV advertising. It seems not even Corrie, X Factor and the Champions League are outwith the reach of online recruitment…

Since this was announced there’s been quite a bit of talk on various blogs, twitter etc as to the rationale behind taking what has so far been a strong online brand onto traditional media like television. Seeing an online business like Jobsite go for TV advertising certainly is extraordinary. After all, isn’t internet advertising supposed to be far more targeted and cost effective? Looking at the performance of traditional media firms (ITV is a great example of this, not seen this, click here) that certainly seems to ring true. £15 million of wasted money then? I don’t think so. Its bold but it definitely isn’t stupid. There’s a lot for Jobsite to gain from this.

To quote Jobsite themselves, the goal is “to become the UK’s most recognizable online recruitment brand and drive client vacancy performance across all sectors and regions, both now and in the future.” OK that’s pretty clear. They want to knock Monster off their perch as the most recognisable online recruitment brand in the UK, and ensure that no young pretenders (of which there are many!) steal a march on them.

Monster is not everyone’s cup of tea. There are few job boards out there that generate as much negative press in the blogosphere as they do. Have a look at Cheezhead or do a search on YouTube for the former CEO of Jobster calling it a “crap product.” Shouldn’t really be too much of a surprise though. The biggest businesses generally get the most stick. Whether you think Monster is the worst or the best product, one thing that can’t be argued is the reach they now have into the UK labour market. They passed the 5 million jobseeker profile mark last month. That’s a healthy chunk of the UK workforce.

If Monster is the target (and it stands to reason that it is) then it makes sense to track the marketing undertaken there, and in short, better it. TV advertising has been a fairly significant part of the mix at Monster. I’m sure at some point we’ve all seen their ads…. Above the line advertising like this has really helped position Monster. As well as the obvious benefit of increasing traffic to the site, another big benefit is that it allowed inexperienced jobseekers and infrequent recruiters to go straight to monster, making it a destination site. These visitors are likely to have either bypassed Google or just typed “monster” into the search engine. This bypasses all of the competition. Lovely. My opinion is that UK internet users are more brand driven than their US counterparts. Look at where your PPC spend is going… I wouldn’t be surprised to see that a lot of the clicks are for your own company name. Making Jobsite a destination site is costly but really positions them well.

Working in recruitment, on or offline, makes it very easy to think that job seekers and employers know/ understand the various routes to market as well as we do. Yes, some clients do. In fact some clients will know more than us I’m sure but it is very unlikely that someone who only recruits once or twice a year will be aware of the latest online trends, or that an internal recruiter or HR person will know every niche job board when their remit includes all head office function. These guys represent a sizeable chunk of the market. Its these people that a TV campaign can really work for.

Taking it a step forward, these same people are the very people that recruitment agencies will look to target. Jobsite being a more recognised brand makes it more likely that recruiters include the site in both their generic candidate generation budget as well as any bundled packages that they sell to clients. Monster was included in the bundle for one leading UK recruiter primarily because of the brand recognition. It was argued that despite the ROI on monster ads not being as good as some other generalist (totaljobs) and specialist (lots) sites that monster should be included as clients who were not quite as web savvy were more likely to buy into the bundle. The result? Lots of sales and lots of revenue for Monster.

On Dragons Den last week, James Caan highlighted that monster were paying $1 million for an ad during the Super Bowl. CareerBuilder have also been paying big bucks for ads during Super Bowl. $1 million for one ad makes Jobsite’s investment seem positively frugal…

You can see the ads themselves here. Some nice ads there - non offensive, general appeal. I like the way they are pushing the concept of upload your CV to “delegate” your job search. Just shows how far the market has come since the initial concerns about people making their CVs openly available online. Now according to Jobsite’s ad, if you don’t upload your CV you’re missing a trick. I had a flick thru some of the CareerBuilder and monster TV ads on YouTube. I think Jobsite’s approach compares favourably to say the least. If you’ve not seen the other ads, have a flick on YouTube and make your own mind up.

Final point on this is that this is a real reflection of just how mature the online recruitment market is becoming. A UK business investing in a £15 million pound advertising campaign? That’s certainly not small change in anyone’s terms (except maybe the guys that have just bought Man City?) There’s clearly a lot of belief at Jobsite in the amount of growth potential they have in their business. Its great to see someone really going for it, despite the seemingly constant bad economic news. Given the knock on effect the recession talk has on the recruitment market, it seems very likely that the overall market will shrink before it’ll grow again. If Jobsite can expand through this there are two certainties:

1. They’ll come out the other side with a far bigger market share and influence
2. Someone else will be losing money. Will that person be another job board, like monster, or will that person be a recruitment company losing out as more clients choose to hire direct thru the likes of Jobsite.

Good luck with it Jobsite.