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

We decided to target the 10% of advertising people who use an adblocker. Because 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. 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 the websites.

Campaign Success

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.TIMELINEThe banners ran for one month, from 26/11/2015 until 26/12/2015.PLACEMENTThe banners ran on the 3 major Belgian advertising websites, visited almost exclusively by people active in the Belgian advertising industry.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.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

BUSINESS IMPACT- 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.RESPONSE- 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.ATTENTION- 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.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The user interacted directly with our campaign, simply by using an adblocker. Our recruitment campaign targeted a very specific group of people: advertising people who use an adblocker. So we put a special message on the 3 major Belgian advertising websites. One that was only activated when the site visitor used an adblocker.This way, we created a connection with our target group that went beyond them simply being online where a banner ad is shown.

TARGET AUDIENCEMM.be, an advertising website visited by almost everyone from the industry, reported to us that 10% of all visitors use an adblocker. Therefor, we know that about 10% of people in Belgian advertising, use an adblocker themselves.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 tan traditional online ads.So we decided to target them with our campaign.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.” We asked our target group to “Join us and let’s create campaigns that are really useful to people”, clearly stating our agency’s intention. The final screen had a more tactical call-to-action: check our job opportunities.