CareerBuilder Super Bowl ’08, the Day After

The game was great. Much as it pains me to say **hurray** when a Giants team that at one point in its history put a dagger in my heart (Wide-Right), I did in fact jump out of my seat when Eli Manning played Houdini on one play, then hit Plaxico Burress wide-open in the end zone for the game winning touchdown.

The ads were less than great. The ‘follow your heart’ spot was a provocative stunt which definitely got people talking…mostly in the way they would talk after leaving a movie with gratuitous gore. The ‘Firefly’ ad was dopey. For some reason it took me until my second and 3rd viewing today to really grasp the punchline. I think it was a lot of story development in 30 seconds, and my slow brain just couldn’t keep up. It could also have been that it was later in the game when fatigue and beer had already set in.The CareerBuilder ’08 SuperBowl ads plus 2 others in the series are posted here.

Let’s see what the market has to say. I’m very interested in a lot of aspects to the campaign. I’ll list them below and continue to update this post as I find out more and more.

1. What is the overall sentiment toward CareerBuilder after it dropped the motherlode to buy those ads?
• Answer #1. USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter ranks ads 38th and 45th. Wasn’t this the metric that got CB’s Ad Agency fired last year?
• Answer #2. Nancy Colasurdo, Life Coach at Foxbusiness.com thought the CareerBuilder Ads Send an Important Message. Hmm…I don’t think most watchers are as cerebral as she.
2. How much web traffic did the ads generate? How many additional resumes, job views, applies, etc.?
   From my CareerBuilder Rep:
   

   Feb 08’, CareerBuilder.com hit a record high in unique visitors (in the Career Services and Development) with 25 million! Most importantly, right after Super Bowl commercials aired (Monday and Tues following)….CB internal data showed a substantial increase in EOI. It increased by 26%. EOI stands for “Expressions of Interest”…meaning # of people applying to jobs. In those 2 days following, there was a 26% increase in people that applied to jobs.

3. With social networking more mainstream than ever, how well does the campaign reach into influential social and professional networks?
   • Answer #1. The recruitosphere, which is NOT the target audience was discussing the ads pre- and post- Super Bowl:
     Why Recruiters Love Super Bowl Ads
     Cheezhead getting busted by W+K for posting the ad pre-bowl
     Cheezhead saying the ad was a flop
     Pamela Skillings really liked them
   • Answer #2. Twitter activity gave real time opinions of the ads. Look what people had to say.
   • Answer #3. Gizmodo (the influential tech gadget blog) rated Firefly the Lowest Kick to Disney’s Balls.
4. How much do the interactive/online components to the campaign contribute to its relative success?
• Answer #1. Charles Armstrong was impressed with Tide and not with CareerBuilder. I agree. Tide blew me away, and I’m getting all sorts of errors with CareerBuilder’s Personal Gruntledness Index today.
• Answer #2. Reprise Media gives CareerBuilder a “Touchdown” for integrating its paid search placement with its ad campaign. Tip o’ the hat to Matthew Grant at Aquent.

I’ll keep my ear to the ground on CareerBuilder campaign happenings as well as on the Monster ones to see who is getting it right, and who is treading water. Ultimately, it has an impact on where we invest our precious marketing budgets. Stay tuned.