Title	ADBLOCK RECRUITING
Brand	BOONDOGGLE
Product/Service	AGENCY SELF PROMOTION
Category	C01. Use of Digital Platforms
Entrant	BOONDOGGLE Leuven, BELGIUM
Idea Creation	BOONDOGGLE Leuven, BELGIUM
Media Placement	BOONDOGGLE Leuven, BELGIUM

Name	Company	Position
Frederik Clarysse	Boondoggle	Creative Director
Wietse De Ridder	Boondoggle	Creative
Xandra van der Mersch	Boondoggle	Account executive
Johan Van Oeckel	Boondoggle	Creative
Sam De Vriendt	Boondoggle	Creative Director

The Campaign

According to site data from MM.be, an advertising website visited by almost everyone in the industry, about 10% of Belgian advertising people use an adblocker. Our insight: the people who hate traditional banner ads and prerolls, might be more motivated to create a different kind of campaign. So we created a banner that was only visible to adblock users, on the 3 major Belgian advertising websites: mm.be, pub.be and bloovi.be. We installed a plugin on each of these websites. It detected adblock users and showed them a special message: “you block ads even if you work in advertising? Then maybe you’re the person we’re looking for.” Our plugin was integrated into the code of the 3 websites and made our banner a part of the site, so adblockers didn’t recognize it as an ad.

Creative Execution

IMPLEMENTATIONOur plugin was integrated into the code of the 3 websites and made our banner a part of the site, so adblockers didn’t recognize it as an ad. Only adblock users saw our banner in the (usually empty) space where normally there would be a traditional banner ad. This was done in full cooperation with MM, Pub and Bloovi.MEDIA CHANNELS/ INTEGRATIONWe integrated our message into the code of the 3 major Belgian advertising websitesTIMELINEThe banners ran for one month, from 26/11/2015 until 26/12/2015.SCALEThe total size of the Belgian advertising industry: about 20 000 people.The 3 websites we advertised on reach the total population. Our banner reached 10% of them.

BUSINESS RESULTS- We received more than 60 applications from 16 countries during the campaign (1 month). That's four times the usual number.- We had only 4 open positions, but so far we hired 6 new people: 2 strategists, 1 UX designer, 1 creative team, 1 account Mgr, 1 account executive.- Because our banner wasn't uploaded via ad servers, but instead integrated into the website's code, we couldn't measure the Click Through Rate. But we do know:1) Our banner was displayed about 16 900 times in 1 month (10% of the 3 site's total reach)2) Traffic on our website tripled to about 3000 unique visitors per week during the campaign.AWARENESS- Our campaign got major attention from sites like Adweek, generating +3 000 000 Twitter impressions.- As a result of this campaign our CEO was invited by Google to be part of a panel on adblocking.

We turned advertising's biggest threat, adblockers, into a medium. It helped us find advertising talent with the right mentality to work for our agency.We were looking for advertising people who are fed up with making traditional ads. The advertising people who use an adblocker themselves might be more motivated to create a different type of campaign.By embedding a special plugin into the code of the 3 major advertising websites, we were able to detect adblock users and show them a special message. Using the adblocker as a medium.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

TARGET AUDIENCEWe targeted the 10% of Belgian advertising people who work in advertising, but use an adblocker anyway. Our strategic insight was that these people might be more motivated to come work for an agency that wants to make a different, more useful kind of campaigns, rather than traditional online ads.MEDIA PLANNINGThere are 3 major advertising sites in Belgium: mm.be, pub.be and bloovi.be. With a bannering campaign on these 3 we could easily reach our entire target group. The banners ran for one month.APPROACHWe directly confronted adblocking ad people with the irony of their online behaviour: “you block ads even if you work in advertising? Then maybe you’re the person we’re looking for."