Adam Davidi 

Indeed’s Paul D’Arcy: ‘Great marketing starts with a great product’

In the first of a new series, the lead marketer at Indeed discusses using real people in ad campaigns
  
  

During the first eight years, Indeed did almost no marketing.
During the first eight years, Indeed did almost no marketing. Photograph: Indeed Photograph: Indeed

1) From Dell to MessageOne to Indeed, during your career as a marketer, what has been the single biggest change affecting your profession?
Over the last century, marketing was used to define and create desire for many types of products. Today, great marketing starts with a great product. Part of this is that consumers have such a strong voice through social media, blogs and reviews; they can quickly propel a product to stardom or obsolescence. It means the role of marketing revolves more around engaging consumers with a great product. If your product isn’t great, you should invest in that before spending money on marketing.

2) Can you tell us about your current role as senior vice-president of marketing at Indeed?
The amazing thing about Indeed is that it did almost no marketing for the first eight years of its existence. During that time, Indeed developed its offering to become the number one job site in the world. Having a great product makes the job of the marketing team much easier. Since we are growing very quickly, I spend most of my time recruiting people to join Indeed and working with our marketing teams to help in any way I can.

3) You’ve recently launched your first ever global brand campaign, ‘How the World Works’. What was the tipping point for this decision?
As a company, Indeed has a singular mission: we exist to help people find jobs. However, as a new site in a new market, it takes time for people to find you and get to know you, and that’s been the tipping point for investing in our first brand campaign.

Having expanded our business to cover more than 55 countries, it’s become more important for us to help people find Indeed. The more people that know about us, the more people that we can help to find jobs.

4) You decided to use real job seekers as part of this campaign. Do you think we will see more brands following this trend?
There is something about making a TV commercial that can seem pompous or fake. We loved the idea of creating a commercial that quickly turned the camera to focus on all the amazing people that come together to make such a production happen. It’s true for so many things in this world – remarkable things happen when people come together to get a job done and that’s the theme of our campaign.

We also loved the fact that turning the camera on our crew allowed us to showcase the real people we hired for the commercial on Indeed. It seemed like a great way to introduce our company and highlight our passion to help people find jobs.

More brands are following this trend to feature real people and places in their advertising, especially as people connect with authenticity. The emergence of new media types that allow companies to go deeper than a 30-second film spot is also fuelling this movement. For example, online video and social media make it easier to connect these real people to the communities who share the same needs or passions. Nurturing genuine relationships between brands and consumers is a much more engaging way to communicate and I think it’s a trend that is here to stay.

5) What advice would you give other marketers considering using real people as part of their marketing activities?
Give your customers or users the space to share their passions and tell their real stories. It’s not about scripting real people to fit your brand’s narrative – it’s about letting the amazing attributes and experiences of each individual shine through.

6) What do you think marketing in 2020 will look like?
It will be even more integrated into the product experience. An increasing number of brands will take a consumer-led approach – stressing the importance of a consistent, seamless, multi-dimensional brand experience for the consumer. This means that each branding effort – across mobile, TV, display, social or even in person – will be presented in a similar style that reinforces the brand’s ultimate message. However, it all boils down to a having a great product which makes it easy and rewarding to share great consumer experiences with the world around us.

7) Finally – how are you and your organisation preparing for these changes?
As a rapidly growing business powered by real-life, talented people, the biggest challenge for Indeed is being able to achieve all the things we want to do while learning from, and engaging with, job seekers and employers across the world.

We’re working hard to build a truly global team and frequently travel to spend time with international job seekers and employers. For Indeed, it’s the very beginning, as there are so many more people that we are committed to helping to find jobs.

Quick questions:

1) What time do you get up in the morning? I’m not an early bird. I wake most days around 8am.

2) What’s the first thing you do when you get to the office? I eat breakfast which is almost always Greek yogurt and fresh fruit. I usually start the day at my desk reading emails from around the world. As a global business, there is always news and communications awaiting as we share ideas and projects across time zones.

3) What do you do to relax? I love to run – I run almost every day on trails near our office during lunch. When travelling, I try to run in every city I visit. At home, I like to unwind and spend time with my three young kids swimming and playing Lego.

4) What app can’t you live without? Strava, which is an app that I use to track my running as well as the biking and running activities of my friends, who enjoy a bit of friendly competition!

5) Favourite marketing campaign this year? I really like Coke’s personalised cans and bottles with real people’s names. I think it is a beautiful way to create a real connection with a product.

6) What campaign do you wish you had come up with? There are some great examples of brands that share our vision to use real-life stories in their campaigns, such as Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, and these are great ways to celebrate the role of everyday people.

7) Your single piece of advice for a new marketer? Love your customers. Get to know them. The rest will follow.

Paul D’Arcy is senior vice-president of marketing at Indeed

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