CASE STUDY: PARITY SOLUTIONS

Project: Recruit IT professionals for Belfast office.

Background: Parity had been advertising exclusively with the Belfast Telegraph in the recent past from which they had received a steady stream of well qualified candidates.

In early 1998 they predicted that they would need to recruit a large number of IT professionals urgently. Their UK agency, Withers Wood Brigdale [WWB] recommended an Open Day to be held in Belfast.

Advertising Strategy: Having accepted the concept of the Open Day as a good way of recruiting a large number of people quickly the client wanted a comprehensive media proposal to promote the event heavily.

Media Strategy: It was decided that we needed the environment offered by local press and the immediacy offered by local radio. The client had not used radio before .As a consequence dominant colour space were booked with the Belfast Telegraph with the copy clearly leading the reader to the Open Day venue and date. In addition a teaser campaign was booked with Downtown/Cool FM. The spots were concentrated into the three day period immediately prior to the Open Day. The commercial was 20" in length and simply reminded people of the date and venue for the Open Day. In total 38 spots were transmitted over the three day period.

Parity were delighted with the turn out at the Open Day and received a lot of "walk in" candidates who decided to attend at the last moment. In addition to the recruitment of candidates immediately Parity received many CV’s from people who were good prospects for the future.

Parity now wants to hold an Open Day in Dublin using a similar media strategy.