My first reaction to yesterday's CareerBuilder Super Bowl ad, about signs you hate your job: After it was first screened for Corporate, how awkward was the silence in that dimly lit room, when everyone stole glances at each other, then realized they were, in fact, the awful employer in the commercial?
The spot was one of 50 broadcast during the widely watched game, ranking No. 13 in popularity in USA Today's annual review. Overall, none of yesterday's commercials were especially inventive compared to previous years, The New York Times said.
"Some sponsors recalled the advice Franklin D. Roosevelt gave about fear and produced commercials that tried to speak to consumers the way they are today rather than V, X or XX Super Bowls ago,'' advertising beat columnist Stuart Elliot wrote. "For instance, Careerbuilder.com, owned by a consortium of media companies like Gannett and McClatchy, offered support to workers worried about changing jobs in a wretched economy. The commercial, by Wieden & Kennedy, used exaggerated humor to suggest that 'even if you make loads of money' -- symbolized by a man drinking gold bars liquefied in a blender -- 'it may be time' to look around."Related: More Super Bowl commercials on YouTube
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It might have been funny a couple of years ago when the job situation wasn't so bad and people had choices. Not now. I don't think it was relevant at all in this economy.
ReplyDeletewhat I noticed was the woman who is frolicking with dolphins (I think that's a dolphin] has on a great pants suit and very stylish high heeled shoes!
ReplyDeleteStunning.
That was by far, the most obnoxious commercial I've seen in a long, long time... Just generally overdone, too long and obnoxious, but ESPECIALLY in times like these, when a lot of people may hate their job but feel damn lucky to have it.
ReplyDeleteOn a related Super Bowl note, I wonder how many Gannett papers are not making it the centerpiece on the Sports section ... it was not the centerpiece in Tallahassee
ReplyDelete"...ESPECIALLY in times like these, when a lot of people may hate their job but feel damn lucky to have it..."
ReplyDeleteThat ad really emphasized how entirely out of touch corporate advertising can be with what's going on in the real world.
I liked the ad. One of my main complaints with Gannett has been its failure to promote its products. We create good stuff, then refuse to sink any money into advertising and marketing.
ReplyDeleteThis is where your furlough paychecks are going - into an ad where a guy punches a koala bear. Wonderful! Worth every penny.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good thing the company has a stake in Career Builder else they'd risk a lawsuit for sharing an inside view of Gannett with millions.
ReplyDeleteIf you made this crappy ad, you probably make a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteWould have been 100% better if they replaced the koala bear with Dubow!
I actually liked the ad (except for the koala bear thing, which didn't work and seemed a little too mean), but I'm with Jim. I saw the ad and my first reaction was, "The people in this ad are the people who own CareerBuilder!"
ReplyDeleteThe ONLY way to get out of this hole we're in is to go for it. If that means spending big money on a Super Bowl ad, I'm all for it.
ReplyDeleteWe should be pumping money into the company to make it better, not worrying about staff levels as if that will fix it.
A good sign, that ad was. Bring on more.
As a Gannett publishing employee...
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the commercial with the exception of hitting small animals.
Personally, didn't like the ad, the redundancy was aggravating.
ReplyDeleteA question as a careerbuilder user---is there a way to filter out the "work at home--investment required" listings? Those drive me nuts. I really only want to search through real job listings.
Does CareerBuilder make most of the money through ads and job placements or by delivering audiences to advertisers and marketers? Anyone know the answer to that?
ReplyDeleteI liked the CareerBuilder.com ad.
ReplyDeleteI have always been disappointed that the newspapers believed that house ads for anything new and exciting Gannett was doing would be enough to promote it fully.
I think Gannett properties have always been meek in promoting themselves.
Get it out there, buy more like this and use billboards, bus shelter posters, whatever it takes.
now a gannett employee and newsroom member, i came from the marketing world as a copy writer and to be quite honest, i thought the ad was hilarious.
ReplyDeletewhether the economy is down or is in a surplus, this commercial speaks to so many in the work force that can't stand their particular job.
the redundancy was brilliant and the scenarios were comically erratic as well as incredibly spot-on. By far the best ad of the super bowl this year.
Every once in a while, especially for us gannetteers, a different and well-thought out ad can actually bring a smile to our faces. Plus, how many more Budweiser horses do you really want to see?
From a purely financial standpoint ... Will running this ad once during the Superbowl make more of a dent than say running it multiple times in primetime? It seems like the better ad buy would have been redundancy versus a one-time spot. At least that's what Gannett's ad folks preach to clients.
ReplyDeletecars.com another Gannett property advertised during the Super Bowl.
ReplyDeleteLike it or not. Career Builder and Cars.com are are brands that are as important to the future of our company as USA Today. I have always been frustrated that the company has been penny wise and pound foolish when promoting its brands. I am proud of the fact that the company is willing to go head to head with the big boys to promote our brands and wish they would do that to promote USA Today and other brands. Both the Career Builder and cars.com were well done. Bravo.
ReplyDeleteI don't work for Gannett, have never worked for Gannett and have never known anyone who worked for Gannett, so I have zero skin in this debate.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'd like to note that anyone who thinks the CareerBuilder commercial was anything other than sophomoric drivel needs a serious brain adjustment.
The real question is what will the ad do for CareerBuilder, isn't it. It's hardly a question of who liked it or not. How will this make CareerBuilder money? That's the question.
ReplyDeleteWhoever wrote that ad knows a hell of a lot about what goes on inside Gannett. I sit near the cubicle of an employee who recently was seen was cutting his toenails while talking on the phone. He was fully dressed, unlike the man in the ad, but it was truly revolting actions while at work.
ReplyDeleteI watched the ad and thought it was the most ridiculous ad I had seen in years. Then I saw that it was for CareerBuilder. Not only did I think it was embarrassingly bad, I wondered if it would ever be possible to recoup the funds spent on it.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who only paid less than half my attention to the game (hostess, doncha know), it caught my eye and reminded me how I feel about my Gannett job, especially the screaming woman.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not we liked the ad is immaterial. Did it drive people to the site?
Personally, I thought the ad they had a couple of years ago was better. The one that featured the employees out in the jungle fighting each other with stuff like desk chairs, water cooler jugs and staplers and that had the slogan, "Do More than Survive the Work Week."
ReplyDeleteI hated my job at the time, so I could really relate.
This is 3:56.
ReplyDeleteAlso I need to mention the commercial with the boss saying here's your promotion and giving the worker a wedgie. That was a perfect analogy for I how I felt at the newspaper where I was working at the time.
Hey "DUMMIES"
ReplyDeleteIs this true?
ReplyDeleteFrom 2/02/2009 5:20 PM
The Career Builder commercial was filmed on location @several Gannett sites using real life employees. This was done to save money on making of the commercial.But without there knowing it the company has actually shown the world it's true colors
Is this true?
ReplyDeleteFrom 2/02/2009 5:20 PM
The Career Builder commercial was filmed on location @several Gannett sites using real life employees. This was done to save money on making of the commercial.But without there knowing it the company has actually shown the world it's true colors
I thought it was hilarious. I laughed before I realized it was a CareerBuilder ad. Then as a Gannett employee, I cheered a little when I realized it was a CareerBuilder ad. It is smart to invest in Internet real estate just like promoting the local paper. Those sites might be bank rolling our papers one day. If we stay stuck in the same model we're doomed.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's just as fitting in bad economic times as it is in good economic times. At first it made me breath a little sigh of relief, there are jobs out there somewhere. If I was jobless, I could find some work, maybe not the best work and maybe not the best paying work, but there is some work out there.
But I love my job, (and yes, I know so many people on here don't, I think that's why most people read this) so I'm not motivated to just go there and start browsing for jobs.
But it got my attention and made me laugh. I think it was a good commercial.
And 2:31 PM, commercials are sophomoric, in general. Calling a commercial that as an insult is, frankly, rather sophomoric.
I'm with the person who noted most commercials are sophomoric. The ones we always remember are the sophomoric ones. The Careerbuilder ad made me laugh because it's exactly the kind of crap that goes on within Gannett. It was no worse than the Doritos crystal ball ad (which was funny, too).
ReplyDeleteBut as someone pointed out, what matters most is whether they drive business to CareerBuilder.
(And by the way, don't dis the Clydesdales. They are my favorite every year.)
Please forgive me for asking this again, but here goes.
ReplyDeleteHow does CareerBuilder make money? Is it through the ads sold or by delivering audiences to advertisers and marketers?
Listen, if newspaper classifieds are tanking then getting a piece of the action in CareerBuilder.com or the automotive site are better than sitting around wishing something would happen.
ReplyDeleteI think the ad was effective.
I also think, after just exchanging an e-mail with a former colleague, that the depiction of what people are feeling about their jobs is spot on. This guy said that Gannett had squeezed all the fun of doing journalism completely out of his department.
(Yells "Aaaaaaaah!" and pounds steering wheel.)
I'm surprised people liked the careerbuilder commercial. I personally didn't like, and the other people at the watch party with me didn't get it. They were like "What was THAT??"
ReplyDeleteAnd while it was repetitive, it wasn't memorable (like the Doritos commercial or the Clydesdale going after his girl).
But, if it makes the company money... At this point, I guess we have to try just about anything.
P.S. I missed the cars.com ad. Will have to look it up.
Just saw cars.com ad. According to the timer, it was 1 minute long. That's $6 million for a spot that I had to find on the 'Net because it made no impact whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteI was a little irritated over them spending as much as they did with the careerbuilder, but I read the threads and I am trying to understand marketing.
Now I'm MAD! We just flushed $9 million down the toilet (not including production costs) for under 2 minutes for something that most people don't remember.
I understand the need to market products. But I also understand the need to do something - ANYTHING - to help build employee morale. And while corporate may not publicly acknowledge this blog, you can bet what's left in your 401K (all five cents) that they read it (if nothing else to figure out who else is looking).
So Crystal Castle - if you're reading this, here's some advice from the trenches.
1. Blowing $9 million when you're furloughing everybody and their mother - bad morale move. REALLY bad morale move.
2. Friday's conference call - NOT a confidence builder (think the stock flush showed you that).
3. Centralization does not work across all departments. From what I understand, the one thing that will kill your customer base is a lack of CUSTOMER SERVICE. Well, when you have COEs that don't actually resolve customer service issues (because they're not on site) - and you stop home delivery several days a week and don't redeliver when the paper is screwed, you lose customers. When you lose customers, you lose advertisers. When you lose advertisers, you lose investors. When you lose investors, you cut employees - which gives you less people to do what you were doing so you cut more. It's a vicious cycle. So just because you can combine internal processes - when it comes to those things that actually involve dealing with the public - you may want to keep those in those communities they serve. I know that since we lost our customer service at my site, our name in the community has been mud. I have way more people than normal come to me saying they were cancelling - specifically for customer service. They didn't get a call back or we don't redeliver anymore - those hometown touches that we don't do anymore in this cookie-cutter corporation.
So here's my thought for the day: Instead of treating us all like one size fits all - how about some more control at the local level. Give us a budget and let us run things based off our community needs - instead of trying to make us all things to all people. What works in Florida may not work in Detroit or NJ or Indy or anywhere else. And just because a paper with 200 newsroom employees can do something doesn't mean that smaller properties can too.
Basically - what does it take to get common sense at the top???
7:44
ReplyDeleteCareer Builder makes money when companies pay to post their jobs on its site. The more posts the more money.
For those of you who don't like the money Gannett spent for these ads I must disagree with you. Super Bowl advertising is big-time in the Marketing world. It wasn't too many years ago that Monster was killing Gannett's home grown Employment solution. Through hard work at the local sites and at Career Builder and shrewd marketing, Career Builder has become a major player. Similar story for Cars.com. If they weren't in the position they are in Gannett would be in even deeper trouble.
It was obvious that this commercial was modeled after every Gannett paper in the USA. Scary stuff.
ReplyDeleteLove it or hate it...the CareerBuilder.com ad worked. At our site it was the most talked about ad from the game. Every character in the spot had someone's name attached...even the Koala.
ReplyDeleteI daydream of punching Jim Hopkins.
ReplyDelete7:59 AM
ReplyDeletePeople talking about an ad doesn't necessarily make a company money. Think gannettblog for example. Look at the analytics and look at the posts here that talk about how "popular" it is among employees. After you do that, ask Jim how much he's pulled in from ads.
It certainly appears to be an ad that could promote ageism, and I find that disgusting.
ReplyDelete