SNL is one of the world’s biggest players in business and financial reporting. Locally, they are one of the area’s giants in terms of employers. With a 5-person recruiting team, one could surmise that they spend a lot of energy in getting the right people on board. They have about 400 employees in their Charlottesville office alone. So, in addition to quality candidates, they need a lot of them. SNL tapped Birch Studio to create a print ad series to help with their recruitment efforts.
Michael Latsko, Chief Talent Officer, offered this: “We are constantly seeking new talent and naturally want to hire the most qualified candidates for the job, but we wanted an advertising campaign that was visually appealing and highlighted some of the more unique aspects of working at SNL to appeal to the most qualified candidates who are also the best fit with our corporate culture.”
The main beneficiary of the ad series was the HR department, however, we wanted to access the institutional knowledge of the marketing department as well to ensure that we could improve upon any previous efforts and dovetail well with other formats SNL was pursuing. We met with the marketing folks to get their perspective on the target audience, what they’ve tried, and what was required vs optional in terms of content.
“While our previous advertising campaigns have promoted Place (Charlottesville), People (employee profiles) and Stability (20th anniversary),” said Rick Wilkes, Director of Marketing, “the new series developed by Birch Studio emphasizes Company Culture. The quirky headlines and imagery make these ads effective at doing what they’re designed to do: make readers stop, look at them and read the brief text that more directly talks about what’s really good about working at SNL and highlights the main benefits derived from an SNL career.”
Research revealed that the demographic SNL was seeking, primarily Generation Y, would have the most interest in the experience of the workplace rather than tangible benefits, promotions or prestige of the organization. Focusing on the culture of the company was a natural solution. We created proofs of two design concepts to determine the artistic direction of the ad series. In the end, they chose them both and we created two ad series with six installments each.
