CareerBuilder Precedes TV Campaign with Web Preview

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Online job-listing provider CareerBuilder.com has unveiled a Web site to support its upcoming multichannel ad campaign, which will launch with its first-ever Super Bowl TV ads.

The prelaunch site, careerbuilder.com/TV, gives a peek at one of four 30-second ads that will air during the Super Bowl on February 6. The ads parody dissatisfying work experiences, with a message that centers around the tag line, "A better job awaits." The site adds exclusive content profiling some characters in the ads and will include the rest of the TV spots as well as outtakes from those ads after the campaign launches in earnest.

This year marks CareerBuilder's first foray into Super Bowl ads. It will follow in coming months with TV ads during high-profile events that include the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards, and the NCAA Final Four.

CareerBuilder will support its Super Bowl ads and other broadcast advertising with online elements, including keyword buys, banner ads, and placements within different sites. The company is planning over $200 million in media exposure for 2005, much of which is in-kind placements on the newspaper sites of CareerBuilder's owners, Gannett Co., Tribune Co., and Knight Ridder.

"We look at every campaign holistically. To not take advantage of the online medium to support offline efforts would be a grave mistake. You need to tie it all together," said Richard Castellini, VP consumer marketing at CareerBuilder.

CareerBuilder provides job listings on over 450 Web sites in total, including the career centers of 130 newspaper sites and those of portal partners America Online and MSN, which the company won over from rival Monster.com in August 2003.

Castellini said the ultimate goal of any advertising is to help the company to make more money, either by selling more ads or developing more marketing relationships with partners. The campaign is expected to provide other benefits as well, including a branding lift and increased traffic to its site.

The TV campaign was created by CareerBuilder's agency of record, Cramer-Krasselt. The same agency also developed CareerBuilder.com's "Plan Your Escape" campaign in 2004 and its "Smarter Way to Find a Better Job" campaign in 2003.

CareerBuilder rival Monster, which made its name with Super Bowl advertising in the past, has opted to eschew the big game for more local advertising. It has inked agreements with Infinity Broadcasting to advertise on 180 Infinity radio stations nationwide, and with the 57 local news affiliates of online TV network Internet Broadcasting Systems (IBS).