December 2007
Expanding the CV database – Partner Case
How advertising has had a turbo charged-effect on Verlagsgesellschaft Madsack’s online service
“Let yourself be discovered“ is the slogan of the advertising campaign which “Verlagsgesellschaft Madsack”, a group of twelve newspaper publishers in the Lower Saxony region of Germany, has placed in various communication media since September, in order to call the attention of employers and jobseekers to its online job portal.
The job portal was launched in March 2007, initially with two publications “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung“ and “Neue Presse“. In November, the group increased to five as “Goettinger Tageblatt“, “Eichsfelder Tageblatt“ and “Schaumburger Nachrichten“ joined in. The objective is to integrate all twelve partner publishers into the portal within the next year.
Ads in own titles were supplemented by ads in the trade magazines of the Chamber of Handicrafts and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, aiming at the target group of employers. In addition, banner ads on “unicum.de”, “studiVZ.net” and “hannover.de” were targeted primarily at jobseekers.
20 second radio spots on “Hit Radio Antenne“, passenger TV on the subway, tramway and at the big subway stations ( TV Spot 1, TV Spot 2) and the distribution of CityCards in pubs und restaurants rounded off the advertising campaign.
Students and younger target groups were addressed through the mailing of press releases to the Lower Saxony universities and colleges and the distribution of advertising material on recruiting days and at trade exhibitions. For the advertising industry, a rate card for the online job portal was sent to all HR marketing agencies in Germany, also to the top 200 job advertisers and temporary-employment agencies.
The sales strategy is to offer online with optional cross media use of the different platforms (online to print/print to online). A reference lineage ad in the relevant newspaper is supplied free of charge.
The results of this intensive promotion indicate that advertising can have a very positive effect. Since the launch of the job portal, more than 3,000 users have registered, 2,100 active CVs have already been entered into the system and 50-70 CVs are being added weekly.
