From award winners to the day-to-day - hoping there's always something in common

I’m writing this post on the train on the way into London to one of our industry’s annual big events - the RAD awards (long story as to why I wasn’t in London anyway – suffice to say rubber gloves and mop needed for family duties!).

Now having heard at the end of last year how much Sinead & John (Buffey) enjoyed, and were very positive about, being a part of the whole judging process – together with the RADs steering team really making a concerted effort to enable the awards to reflect the direction that the Digital component is taking Recruitment Advertising (a shame to say it’s not vice versa - yet) – I’m quite excited to see the standard of work and what has won through. It’s always a good bash whatever, but I do really enjoy the opportunity to get inspired by seeing some of the best work from our peers and betters, something I just don’t seem to have enough time to do in my day to day.

But the journey has got me thinking about something that I picked up from within my agency last week. I was perusing a national newspaper web site – as is my wont – when I happened to spot one of our client’s logos. Just sitting there. Now it jumped out to me, which was great, but I quickly realised that the only reason it did was because it was a logo I knew. So I clicked on it – and through I went to a job description. Fine? Not really. What particularly alarmed me was that the job wasn’t even one that you’d associate with this particular client (I would guess some clients are that well known that in the right sector the logo alone is enough to get relevant traffic generated).

So why am I blogging about this? Well it struck me that applauding the great and the good is absolutely healthy and to be encouraged, but at the same time we have to remember just how easy it is to get it completely wrong too. Now I’m not interested in pulling apart how that banner got there – whether it was the site “doing us a favour and filling space” or someone having a bad day and firing across a logo rather than a made up banner - but by having a simple reveal of job title, location and then the logo (if nothing else it’s nice and colourful and helps ensure it’s viewed as a real job) the space suddenly becomes something infinitely more fit for purpose.

So whether creating the slickest of campaigns, the best brochures, the sexiest websites or placing simple job ads on a couple of contracted sites, let’s hope we all remember to check ourselves and ensure that it’s all about being fit for purpose. And if it’s fit for purpose in regards to getting the right candidate’s attention and selling them a job to apply to, whatever the budget or scale, then it’s definitely fit for purpose for the client and their recruitment requirement.

Here’s to an enjoyable night – and not too painful a morning recovering.
:-)

Comments

[Matt]

Sensible, insightful and rant free all at the same time? Blimey Alex what is this, some kind of New Year's resolution! ;-)

Matt

[Alex]

don't worry Matt - be back to type soon enough I'm sure

;-)

[Emma Kennedy]

Hiya,

I have been lurking periodically on the site for a while, and finally plucked up the courage to comment on a post as I just wanted to say that I wholeheartedly agree with your post Alex.

On GAAPweb we have what we call a "home page button" which is the featured recruiter area of our site, and I just don't get why people insist on recommending them to their clients in situations that they seem to be completely unsuited to.

These buttons are simply a logo which link through to all of that clients listings, and whilst you get extra traffic you also get a lot of wastage, as candidates realise that the roles, which they are lead to, are not for them.

Don't get me wrong - they work brilliantly when you have a good well respected brand (and can afford to take that wastage) or when you have an relatively well known brand but a wide variety of jobs, making it a cost effective option. Otherwise what is the point!?!

We regularly have unheard of companies being sold the benefits of a home page button in order to boost brand and traffic to an obscure specialist role, and it just doesn't work that way. The problem is that once clients are sold on an idea it is very difficult to advise differently.

We have so many other features on the site (including on the home page if that is really your bag), which would work so much better in these situations(still showing the logo but with a bit more info to tempt candidates to take a look at the role) that it sometimes seems to me that it is often sheer laziness or overwork, which stop agencies from looking into what else is available or would work better.

We are all smart, professional people, and are supposed to be the experts on this stuff.

Whilst I understand that it is difficult when you are putting together a last minute media schedule which needed to be there yesterday, and it is the 10th one you have done that day/week etc the reason that clients call on ad agencies services is often so that they don't have to think/worry about these things and that they are looking for expert advice and it seems a shame to short change them on something which seems so common sense.

Hey ho, guess you can always blame the media or that it was the "wrong week" or the "uncertain economic climate" as to why it hasn't worked...

Oops, looks like I may have picked up the ranting mantle (and it's only my first time commenting too!)

[Emma Kennedy]

oh and I forgot to say, if it is a case of lack of knowledge then I (and my media peers) have to hold our hands up and take some responsaibility, but you can always contact us to check - who cares if it is the trillionth call of this nature that day - that is how we earn our keep :)

[John Whitehurst]

Hi Emma,

Some good points here ... I just get bored listening to half the rubbish people come out with - agency and media.

You can see that they have not even thought about how the placement fits the brief. It is really not that hard.

You look at the structure and nature of the medium and how that relates to your clients needs.

Rather than sending the same old 'copy and paste' schedule and rational. Also when you 'copy and paste' - get the right client name.

Your rant has started me off now ... grump, grump, grump

[Alex Hens]

Thanks for joining the debate Emma, good to have your contribution.

The reason (well at least one of them) we started this blog was to try and raise discussion around this specialist arm of media planning & execution – particularly hoping to get both sides of the story (after all – without it a blog is just a monologue, and whilst the best monologue’s can be captivating, I think dialogue’s are generally far more interesting). Can’t argue with your comment at all – and as we’ve concurred before – there’s a lot on all sides of all fences that needs to be addressed in order to get this industry’s collective digital house in order, we’re just hoping that by creating a platform for the debate we might actually just help establish some clear best practice guidance for us all (and perhaps have a smile and a beer or two on the way).

So here’s a suggestion to any digital savvy media sales rep reading this (and I consciously distinguish that from a run of the mill digital media sales rep) – if you think something has been / are being hawked by an agency that are particularly far removed from what you’d consider to be best practice / getting best effect and value from your site, then where there’s someone who could / should give a sh*t, then let them know about it.

Now we’re all busy people, but I for one am passionate about what my agency produces as digital media advice (of course I’m passionate about it as part of a cohesive solution – but this ain’t www.cohesiverecruitment.co.uk), but these days I confess to seeing few of the schedules that go out the door. These are still very formative times in regards to learning about best exploitation of the digital medium (for all of us), and with so many sites with different approaches and potentially different user behaviour patterns, it’s very tough for all levels of an agency to stay abreast of it all – but we have to maintain our hunger to be better, to strive to offer the best advice we can to our clients. So as far as I’m concerned – if you feel you have a booking that doesn’t really utilise your site to its best effect for the budget, and you get no joy explaining this to the person who booked it, then go to someone who does give a sh*t, and if they’re worth their salt they’ll educate the other person as to why they should to.

I’ll absolutely put my hand up for you to badger me if anyone here has been selling in ropey advice – and I’m sure that my fellow bloggers will do the same (if only to forward to some other enforcer type character ;). So let’s keep the debate going – this isn’t a blame game, it’s about learning as we go and striving to be better to everyone’s long term benefit.

Alex “now living in fear of my inbox exploding under the deluge” Hens

;-D

[Matt]

Hi Emma

Really good comment and thanks for writing.

The answer to me is fairly simple. If all the agencies / experts / others out there actually used third party tracking and the results from it to advise their clients properly then this kind of thing just wouldn't happen. The longer third party tracking isn't in the "mainstream" the longer it will take the industry to get the market penetration it should quite frankly already have

[Sinead Bunting]

I of course agree that third party tracking should be standard and can alleviate the issues caused with cut and paste media choice, which is as much due to poor training as it is with laziness.

Good plain common sense thinking and analysis when it comes to using the job board environment is key (which I know everyone is in agreement with here).

Many Job board advertising elements such as banners, buttons, and 'Jobs of the Week' must link internally to job postings, which is fine, however this is not always condusive to letting you know which elements work best as it will show the traffic from job postings and not from the culmative advertising elements that have contributed to that traffic.

What's interesting though is that its simply not a case of determing what elements have provided most clicks to a job posting and basing success on that basis. A few years ago I looked after the online media planning and buying for one of the UK's biggest retail banks. We utilised a variety of job board visibility products to ensure they stood out in this competitive environment. Working with one particular board we secured the first use of a brand new homepage button - the only branded placement on this leading job boards homepage (it was kinda exciting). This was in conjunction with a button placement deeper in the site on the job search page, which we had been using in rotation for quite some time.

I was pretty interested to see from the third party tracking how the premium homepage placement for this ongoing customer service campaign had performed (the bank was so big, this site made an exception and let us use third party tracking within the job board environment).

I was a bit deflated initially when having reviewed the stats this homepage placement performed below average. However looking at the campaign and various stats on the job board as a whole something really interesting became clear. The traffic of the button/banner that had been deeper in the site on the job search page absolutely skyrocketed compared to previous weeks/months data. The impact of having used the homepage placement in conjunction with additional placements reinforced the advertising message and led to a culmulatively more successful campaign.

Of course, only through tracking and considered analysis was this insight gained into optimum usage of the job board environment.