Using social media to attract creative Canadian youth to work for your company: priceless.
This is just what MasterCard is doing with its summer intern recruitment campaign, set to run until the end of April. In its quest to find four new interns for its Toronto offices, the company is inviting post-secondary students to apply for the internship via LinkedIn and other social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.
The campaign is being promoted to students on campus with a series of posters containing social prompts: one features a QR code that can be scanned, sending the viewer to a YouTube video explaining the application process, the second a Twitter hashtag (#internswanted) and the third a Google short code directing viewers to the MasterCard Flickr page. Facebook ads direct the audience to the MasterCard Internship group where the viewer must ‘like’ the page.
Additionally, the campaign is being advertised with a homepage takeover of student job searching website Talentegg.ca, with animated Easter eggs that help further explain what the internship is about.
Media on the campaign was handled by UM Canada in Toronto, and creative by its sister agency, MacLaren McCann.
‘Not only is [MasterCard] getting a strong presence online, but we’re having a direct connection with students at various universities,’ Kobi Gulersen, account manager, MacLaren McCann tells MiC. ‘We have contacts with various student groups such as the marketing association at York or the commerce association at Ryerson and they’ve been very receptive to help us spread the word, they themselves are applying for the job because it’s right up their alley.’
The ads ask students to send a cover letter, resume and a creative digital submission that communicates to MasterCard more about who they are and why they would be a good candidate for the internship. Since the campaign launched two weeks ago, MasterCard has received just under 270 applications from students all over Canada. Some examples of the creative submissions include poems, rap performances, websites and a Twitter account with the candidate tweeting ‘priceless’ everyday moments, says Gulersen.
‘We’ve left it open canvas and people have come to us in very unique ways,’ says Gulerson. ‘We wanted to make it a little more engaging and we wanted to add an element of excitement around the internship.’
According to Lilian Tomovich, head of marketing, MasterCard, the number of candidates has already exceeded the brand’s expectations and the campaign is only at its mid-point. The social strategy has also been a boon to the brand’s Facebook presence in Canada, Tomovich says; since the campaign launch, MasterCard’s Facebook group has grown from 940 to 3,033 fans.
‘The new segment is a small piece of our business now but a huge piece of our future,’ says Tomovich. ‘So far the response has been phenomenal and we’re excited to see where this can go.’
