Student Code Developer

Background

Nokia wanted to recruit the region’s brightest tech graduates by encouraging them to register for an app development competition.

Idea

These students actually have their own, very unique language, which they speak in every day. Computer code.

A poster was placed around university campuses written in a code that only the computer-literate could understand. To the average observer it looked like a regular ad with a techy twist, but to young programmers it was actually a set of instructions, encouraging them to run the code in their own computers.

Once they ran the code, it automatically opened the Nokia UAE Facebook page in their browser, where they were rewarded with an invitation to join the competition and apply for a job.

Results

The ads ran at seven universities with the objective of getting 100 respondents. In the first week alone the campaign achieved over 500 applicants. A unique way to filter through job-seekers without the need for a single interview.

Our Thoughts

I love self-selecting advertising like this. And just think for a moment what you would have had to do to respond. First you would have had to write down what you saw in the poster, then go to a website, then type it into a field, then apply for the job.

I mean, that isn’t easy. But five hundred people hurdled every obstacle placed in their path. This isn’t just about Nokia finding people they want to work for them, the nature of the ad meant it got people thinking they wanted to work for Nokia. Important difference. PC

This has echoes of that British Army Recruitment campaign of the Nineties, where the ads became part of the selection process. Interesting that the idea began as a fairly traditional print campaign before growing into the online environment. JA