The Google Job Experiment

Background

Alec Brownstein was looking for a job as a copywriter with one of the top New York ad agencies. Getting to see the creative director of one of these places is close to impossible. Their P.A.’s are lionesses, they never answer the phone themselves and they will delete your emails. The only way you can reach them is if you are very clever.

Idea

When Scott Vitrone, Ian Reichenthal (both Creative Directors at Y&R New York) Gerry Graf (Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi New York), Tony Granger (now Global Creative Director for Y&R) or David Droga (the CEO  and Chief Creative Officer of Droga5) Googled themselves, they saw a personalized message from Alec asking for a  job. The message linked to his online portfolio. He used Google Ad Words and buying the words cost him the grand sum of $6.

Results

Alec was called in for interviews with David Droga, Gerry Graf, Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal. Scott and Ian offered him a job. Alec is now working at Y&R New York.

Our Thoughts

If you Google Alec Brownstein, there are 134,000

results. That’s 10,000 more connections than the guy

who hired him. OK, so David Droga gets 2.5 million

results but for a guy still in his 20’s, Alec has made

himself pretty famous pretty quickly in

Adland simply by being smart. What’s so funny about

this is his understanding of the psychology of Creative

Directors. Insecure souls who simply have to Google

themselves regularly to make sure they are still relevant.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Alec

was copied almost immediately and art director Stacey

Mann has been using exactly the same idea to target

Droga. "Looking for a great creative? A great creative

is looking for you. hiremefroga5.blogspot.com." I don’t

think she’s had much luck. Alec, on the other hand, is

now working 14-hour days, weekends and holidays. And

considers himself privileged!