Careerbuilder is ending its use of chimpanzees in its ads

January 24, 2007

.... unfortinately not for animal welfare purposes, but still good news for the chimpanzees who don't deserve to be beaten into submission and dressed in stupid outfits ...

CareerBuilder gives chimps the pink slip

Despite ads' popularity, online job site opts for a different direction

By Mary Ellen Podmolik

Special to the Tribune

Published January 19, 2007

There'll be no more monkey business at CareerBuilder.com.

After helping CareerBuilder climb over Monster.com to become the largest online job site, the chimps are being let go--right before the second anniversary of the 2005 Super Bowl commercial that vaulted them, and the company, into public consciousness.

But in an advertising twist that speaks volumes about the need to maintain brand awareness among fickle consumers, CareerBuilder will start airing 30-second commercials next week that say goodbye to the chimps. More importantly, the same ads will alert viewers to watch the new campaign, which makes its debut during the Feb. 4 Super Bowl telecast.

Jettisoning a successful, funny campaign is a risky strategy, and raises an obvious question: If it's not broke, why fix it? But experts say it's a necessary move in the current advertising environment, where advertising is expensive and breaking through the clutter of competing messages--both on television and the Web--is more difficult than ever.

In particular, with the cost of a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl now reaching $2.6 million, it's not enough to air a clever new ad. Sponsors like CareerBuilder need to generate water-cooler interest ahead of time, which is why the company is investing in a lavish send-off for the chimps that also promotes the successor campaign.

" What's happening is there's more wackiness, eccentricity and humor in ads and that doesn't last, " said D. Joel Whalen, associate professor of marketing at DePaul University. " How many times do you want to hear the same ... joke? "

For two years, CareerBuilder's well-dressed if poorly behaved primates have been reliable pitchmen for the help-wanted Web site, which is owned by Tribune Co.--publisher of the Chicago Tribune--Gannett Co. and McClatchy Co. The site receives an average of 22 million to 23 million unique visitors per month, and revenues for the first nine months of the year topped $500 million. In July, CareerBuilder announced it had passed archrival Monster in revenues, and the chimps contributed significantly to that effort.

" Obviously, we've created an amazing fan base, " said Cynthia McIntyre, senior director of advertising for CareerBuilder. " We've had great success with them, but if you think about the game of branding, advertising and buzz, it's a popularity contest. It's [been] the same joke, the same punch line. The name of the game is to be talk-worthy, buzz-worthy. "

The new campaign's five spots, centered around the theme " it's a jungle out there, " offers a humorous, novel take on other workday frustrations, like competing with co-workers for promotions and enduring performance reviews and employee training. The first two 30-second commercials will air during the Super Bowl, one during the second quarter and the other during the third.

To generate pre-game buzz, the company is putting a 7-second snippet of one commercial, titled " Promotion Pit, " on its Web site the week before the game. The company declined to provide any advance details.

CareerBuilder isn't the only company employing the buzz tactic to promote a Super Bowl ad. Nationwide Mutual Insurance is posting its Super Bowl ad, featuring Kevin Federline--Britney Spears' soon-to-be ex-husband--on its Web site a week before the game.

The Super Bowl has long been known as the place for eye-catching new creative work. But as the price tag for spots has climbed, the need to link commercials with the companies behind them has taken on greater importance.

" That's the biggest problem with Super Bowl ads, there are so many that are wonderful executions that mean nothing to the brand, " said Peter Krivkovich, chief executive officer of Cramer-Krasselt, CareerBuilder's ad agency. " If it's just to pound your chest and say I'm in the Super Bowl, then it's a total waste of money. "

Between January and November, CareerBuilder's total ad spending was $36 million, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Generating viewer interest in the new campaign is at the heart of the transition commercials.

The 30-second spots, two that will run on television and a third on YouTube, all show office chimps behaving badly. Text tells viewers the company has had enough of working with the animals and viewers should tune in to the " big game " to see the ads evolve. The first transition commercial will air during Sunday's New England Patriots-Indianapolis Colts game on CBS.

Certainly, some corporate branding campaigns have withstood the test of time. The Maytag repairman is considered a classic example of a branding message that has held up. More recently, ad executives believe the current MasterCard " priceless " campaign has staying power because of the many permutations of its execution.

But more often than not, to advance a brand you have to advance a message, said Steven Addis, chief executive of Addis Creson, a branding consultancy in Berkeley, Calif. And if the first campaign was humorous, the second had better be.

" If the attitude is wit and being clever, you can't fall below that, " Addis said. " Otherwise the personality of the brand is schizophrenic. "

" Hopefully, this is funny, " Krivkovich said. " The strategy isn't funny. The execution turned out to be funny and that's fine, but the whole thing is you have to be right on your strategy and execute it in a way that people will remember it. "

CareerBuilder also has been aided by the existence of Monk-e-mail, a viral marketing campaign that lets users dress a chimp, type a message and have the " talking " monkey deliver the e-mail to the recipient. There have been more than 83 million message plays, and composers of the messages spend an average of 6-plus minutes at the CareerBuilder site, reinforcing the brand message.

The company plans to continue offering the service, but as of this week the site introduced Age-o-Matic, which lets users upload their own picture to a site, answer a few questions and see how their current jobs will age them.