Your passion is the best marketing tool
It’s funny the way things happen. No sooner had I finished reading this week’s cover story on the ways that companies are benefiting from incorporating the “Brand Me” ethos into their communications than a particular email landed in my inbox. It was from an out-of-work creative asking me to look over a campaign he is running for “the brand that is myself”.
The fellow behind the website calls himself “adlandcreative” and uses his blog and website, adlandshouldhireme.com, to showcase his creative skills and convey just why he would be so valuable to a marketing services agency.
Nowhere does he actually take the opportunity to place a CV. Not even in the section of his website entitled “Resume”. Is this the new way of getting a job? Are covering letters and CVs yesterday’s news? Blogs and the likes of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are pretty valuable tools when you need to get a message out to millions of people, so why not use them to impress potential employers?
It goes the other way too. You might be considering using such tools to recruit talent. Last week Marketing Week’s associate editor Ruth Mortimer used her blog to write about a great little film that Lastminute.com posted on YouTube as an ad to help it recruit a new marketing manager and a destination executive.
Our cover story discusses the need to become more personal in your communications with your customer, in the online and offline spaces where they like to chat. It talks about the idea of building on the passions and the knowledge – the very personalities – of your people, in order to inform your brand’s communications and tone of voice.
It is about your brand’s identity conforming to the people working within the marketing team as opposed to the people conforming to the brand. Sounds fluffy? Maybe you should check out some of the brands and agencies that have found such an approach useful.
Most of Lastminute’s campaigns have been using this approach for years and its recruitment ad follows tried and trusted guidelines.
Adlandcreative makes clear that the innovation he is currently demonstrating won’t run dry the moment he finds employment. As he states in one article on his blog: “Marketing is about having the ability and character to infuse your passion, creativity and ideas in a very productive and driven manner for your organisation or your client”. Well put.
