SEEK unveils major new brand campaign, The SEEKRET – and revives an old icon
Employment marketplace SEEK has unveiled a major new brand campaign that revives its iconic ‘Seek and you shall find’ tagline more than a decade after it was rested.
The major work centres around the character of John, an energetic American motivational speaker modelled on the likes of Anthony Robbins, who comes Down Under to spruik what he calls ‘The SEEKRET’.
Rather than based on some deep wisdom only he possesses, the career answers he provides the crowd about salary and flexible work arrangements come from one place.
“You’re just using the SEEK app,” a tradie points out.
The humour-filled TVC ends with a familiar phrase that most people would instantly recognise.
SEEK’s director of marketing, Maryanne Tsiatsias, said she wanted to bring back the ‘Seek and you shall find’ brand platform from the moment she joined the company almost two years ago.
“When I first told people I got the job at Seek, the first thing my friends would say is that tagline,” Tsiatsias told Mumbrella in an exclusive interview.
“How did they still know it after so long [not in use]? I really wanted to bring it back.”
But when she landed in the role, joining from World Vision, the job market was in an unusual place – lots of vacancies, not many candidates willing to make a move thanks to Covid-induced uncertainty.
“That’s why my first big campaign was about The Great Job Boom,” she said.
The employment market has shifted again since then and candidates are no longer shy, making it the perfect time for SEEK to go to market with something big, flashy and memorable, she said.
Tsiatsias engaged TBWA\Melbourne and its specialist branding division Brand\Labs to come up with a “bold” concept, and they offered plenty of options.
“We got presented with not the usual three ideas but quite a lot of ideas actually. There was something about this one that stood out though. It’s a gut reaction, I think.
“It’s clever. It’s funny. When we first heard the concept, we laughed. We kept coming back to it for that reason – it made us smile, it made us laugh.”
In John and his sidekick Jay, there is plenty of potential for long-term character development and in addition to the TVCs, are social cuts with additional story angles.
“We’ll probably over time build out the characters a bit more,” Tsiatsias said, adding the caveat: “Maybe. You never know for sure how something is going to land. If people warm to the characters, we’ll absolutely keep developing them.”
The campaign’s messaging deliberately goes all-in on the SEEK app, which is where the majority of users now are – and growing.
“It’s very much where people are. We still have our web presence obviously, but most are using SEEK on their phones and it’s rising. All of our advertising will now reference the app as the call to action.
“Ultimately, you’ll also see at the end the reference to ‘better job matches than ever before’ and that’s reinforcing where we invest as an organisation – the search and match capability. We’ve improved the back-end, which people don’t necessarily see.”
The TVC was directed by Tom Kuntz, best known for the Old Spice ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ ad.
The media strategy, delivered by UM Australia alongside SEEK’s internal media and customer engagement team, will see the campaign run across TV, cinema, outdoor, online video, search, email, display, social and SEEK-owned channels.
Other assets
15 second social cut – hot match
Credits
Creative Agency: TBWA\Melbourne
Director: Tom Kuntz
Production AV: Good Oil
Production Photography: Louis & Co
Post Production: The Editors
Sound Production: Squeak E Clean
Media AU: UM Australia
Media NZ: UM New Zealand
Have your say