3 Experimental Recruitment Marketing Campaigns that Worked

Every year, the Rally® Awards shine a light on practitioners for their achievements in Recruitment Marketing and employer branding strategies.

While these teams and individuals vary wildly in their makeup, a common trait among them is a willingness to go outside of the box. In the face of the unknown, potential pushback or even failure, they plot out their Recruitment Marketing strategy, stay true to their vision and swing for the fences to try to win over today’s talent!

To help inspire innovative thinking in your own talent attraction strategy, we’re sharing 3 experimental Recruitment Marketing campaigns that worked, featuring Rally Award winners: Sitel Group, Intel and Nestlé USA.

1. Sitel Group — “Pie With People: A Sitel Group® Variety Show”

When 95% of their company moved to work from home in 2020, the Sitel Group recruitment team had 2 significant challenges:

1. Showing employees and candidates that they still value connection, and
2. Standing out as an employer in the highly competitive customer service industry

What a better way to show connection and bring people together than with food?

Thus, Sitel Group’s Pie With People (PWP) was born, a new original video series presenting the company’s core values of education, diversity and sustainability through the voice of its people and their stories, an idea that would go on to win Sitel Group second place in the Best Employer Brand Video at the 2022 Rally Awards.

The originality of Pie With People made this strategy stand out with the Rally Award judges. Here’s the story behind the strategy:

Strategy

With their target audience consisting of current leadership, frontline employees and future candidates, the main goals of Sitel Group with Pie With People were to:

• Unite its team, to make them feel connected
• Authentically present the company culture
• Raise brand awareness of Site Group as an employer

Except for their live show, the “recipe” for each bi-monthly episode was “sliced” 3 ways and included 2 “crumbs” (bridges). Here’s what that looked like:

• Slice 1: Pie with Game Changers – Interviews with associates challenging the status quo in their personal and professional lives.
• Crumb 1: Not So Breaking News – Kid news anchors, Shower Girl and Sky Laser, share interesting facts related to the episode’s theme. As children of Sitel Group’s associates, these kids would shine a light on the company’s family focus.
• Slice 2: Pie with Decision Makers – Leaders share industry expertise and insights into how they are true customer experience disruptors.
• Crumb 2: “Filling” Good Content – Clips of associates being their authentic selves, highlighting their personal and professional talents.

At the end of each interview, the final slice consisted of playing a round of rapid-fire questions, asking guests anything from their most used emoji to their favorite word.

Season 1 included 4 episodes and a live show in December around the theme of reinforcing the company’s family values. After the 1st pilot, the episodes were named:

• EP2: Tips to Sustainability, at Home Biodegradable Crafts and Mental Wellness
• EP3: Fostering Inclusion and Diversity in the Workplace
• EP4: Creating a Culture of Lifelong Learning

Prior to releasing full episodes, Sitel Group shared bloopers, teasers and engaging content to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to create buzz. When the full video of each episode was ready, they shared a short clip to Facebook and Instagram that directed the viewer to the full video on YouTube.  

A trailer for Pie With People from Sitel Group.

Results

Sitel Group measured PWP with social media reach, video views and engagements.

PWP achieved an organic engagement rate of 18.36%, far above the industry standard across Facebook and Instagram of 0.7%, while reaching 27,974 people. The organization saw similar success from a paid perspective in which PWP reached 209,641 people, had 249,804 video plays and an engagement rate of 31%.

When it came to the live show, the show reached 24,088 people, had a record-breaking 40,650 video plays and achieved an engagement rate of 61.30%, consisting of 1.4k engagements (11 shares, 799 comments and 605 reactions). This made it the most engaged live show of 2021 for Sitel Group.

With so much success, the company is currently gearing up for season 2!

Takeaway

By taking advantage of the rising popularity of video and podcasting, and by giving their employees a public platform to tell their authentic stories, Pie With People expanded employer brand visibility and helped Sitel Group to create a more socially engaged audience than in years past.

2. Intel — “Social Stories from Elite Athletes at Intel”

Intel is known for their innovative technology. But did you know that they also employ a number of elite athletes and current and former Olympians?

With this in mind, when the 2021 Summer Olympics rolled around, Intel’s employer brand and Recruitment Marketing team saw a unique opportunity to further showcase their employee experience by spotlighting these exceptional employees. This outstanding Recruitment Marketing campaign won Intel first place in the Best Use of Organic Social Media in Recruitment Marketing category in the 2022 Rally Awards!

Here’s the story behind this out-of-the-box recruiting strategy:

Strategy

Intel created a video series focusing on their athletes to be launched across their various social media channels during and after the 2021 games.

Wanting to give cultural insight to candidates, and needing to adhere to stringent rules about working with and promoting Olympians, Intel focused their video series around one singular topic: how athletics prepared these employees for the corporate world.

Because a few of the Olympians were currently in Europe training for the 2021 Olympics, Intel’s storytelling and production partner Stories Inc. interviewed and filmed these employee athletes in a short time frame, either virtually or in person.

In total, 4 current employees were chosen to be spotlighted, representing a wide variety of Olympic categories and professional roles:

• Ashton Easton  —  2-time Olympic Gold Medalist in the decathlon and product development engineer 
• Pawel Tarnowsk — professional windsurfer and sales account manager 
• Lex Gillette — 5-time Paralympic Medalist, 4-time World Champion long jumper and Intel Athlete 365 mentor 
• Janne Muller-Wieland — Olympic bronze medalist in field hockey and Intel Technology in Sports ambassador (Note: Janne is no longer with Intel)

A video of Lex Gilette, 5-time Paralympic Medalist, 4-time World Champion long jumper and Intel Athlete 365 mentor.

Results

In the end,  11 videos were produced, customized and optimized for each social channel, as well as 3 blog posts. The videos on Instagram and LinkedIn alone resulted in over 8,000 views,  1,500 engagements and 20 shares across multiple channels.

Takeaway

By showcasing the professional athletes among their ranks at a time when the world’s eyes were on athletics, Intel reinforced its employer brand as one that is fueled by high-caliber people, accepts and supports a wide variety of employees from all kinds of different backgrounds and offers opportunities for career development.

While not every employer in the Rally Recruitment Marketing community employs Olympians, you might be surprised at some of the notable achievements or exceptional talents of your team members. Why not send out an email or Slack message to find out?

3. Nestlé — “A New Era in Coffee | Experimentation Driving Innovation at Nestlé”

The trend of at-home coffee consumption continues to grow, with many consumers “hacking their way to the perfect cup” right in their own kitchens. From whipped coffee to cold brew to plant-based, new coffee occasions and trends continue to surface on social media, driving both consumer experimentation and brand innovation.

As a leader in the coffee category, Nestlé had a unique opportunity to tap into coffee culture to help the company attract talent to its company culture. Research data had revealed that wellbeing was a priority for both consumers and prospective talent and that coffee was seen as contributing to relaxation. As a result,  Nestlé saw an opportunity to bridge their product brand and employer brand to support the company’s talent acquisition goals.

Here’s the story behind the strategy:

Strategy

Nestlé’s campaign, A New Era in Coffee | Experimentation Driving Innovation at Nestlé, highlighted how their people and brands are driving innovation in the coffee space.

The Recruitment Marketing campaign was targeted to their Achiever candidate persona on LinkedIn as well as to a coffee, innovation and careers audience on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. This audience consisted of talent groups who live within a certain proximity to Nestlé campuses in Washington, Seattle and Cleveland and display an interest in areas such as innovation, sales and marketing.

As part of the campaign, Nestlé created a video featuring several Nestlé employees who shared more about the value they get from helping to lead this new era in coffee, learning from customers and innovating the “next big thing” in the coffee category. Employees talked about their work supporting Nestlé brands such as Nescafé, Nespresso, Starbucks at Home and Coffee Mate, just some of the Nestlé brands that have been at the forefront of this new era of coffee experimentation and innovation.

One of the most unique components of this campaign was that it tapped into social trends, such as ASMR, along with stunning, aesthetic coffee video shots. They also prioritized Instagram Reels placements, a key platform for Millennial and Gen Z audiences.

A video from Nestlé USA’s campaign: A New Era in Coffee | Experimentation Driving Innovation.

Results

Along with earning Nestlé first place in the Best Employer Brand category at the 2022 Rally Awards, Nestlé’s campaign broke records with the amount of positive sentiment that it received. Across their social media platforms, the campaign garnered over 7.4 million impressions, 3 million video views and 2.4 million engagements.

Takeaway

The idea of the coffee break took on new meaning during the pandemic. Instead of being able to pop out to a coffee shop with a coworker, people were now drawing inspiration from social media to try new coffee inventions at home. However, the intention behind coffee breaks were the same: to help break up the day, restore energy and contribute to well-being.

By connecting their brands with beautifully-crafted videos and trends like ASMR, Nestlé USA reinforced that they are not only a leader in coffee, but also an employer of choice — offering candidates the opportunity to tap into their love for coffee culture and help innovate the next big thing.  

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For more tips, tools and inspiration from today’s leading recruitment marketers and employer brand specialists, read our Q&A series with Rally Award winners below:

• Q&A With Jonna Sjövall, Recruitment Marketer of the Year
• Q&A With Ugo Nwankwo, Recruitment Marketing Rising Star
• Q&A With Samantha Schuch, Recruitment Marketing Rising Star

To make sure you don’t miss out on the next Rally Awards, and all the innovative ways employers are going outside of the box to attract today’s and tomorrow’s talent, join the Rally community today!