The problem
Spain. June 2012. Televisions and newspapers were only talking about one thing: “The economic crisis”, “The Spain’s bank rescue”… Meanwhile the unemployment rate for young people was by 50% and in the spanish companys the traditional CV’s landed on mountains with other traditional CV’s. As a “Junior profile” there was very difficult even to get a job interview.
The idea
Destroy my traditional CV and create a viral campaign to send a message to all the companies in Spain: “Rescue a spanish guy” (Rescata un español). With less than 30 euros, HTML + CSS and a lot of work, I built the website that helped me to communicate my idea. The campaign was supported with profiles in Twitter and Facebook that were specially created to communicate my 30 days countdown. After this month, I wouldn’t be available for the spanish labour market anymore.
Why did it work?
Concept
Set an expiration date for myself was effective. If consumers are more likely to buy products that are on sale for a limited period of time, why wouldn’t companies not do the same with a spanish guy saying that he will leave the country after 30 days?
Naming
Reading a newspaper in Spain in June 2012 was really boring. Banks rescue, the country’s rescue, rescue, rescue… “Rescue a spanish guy” (Rescata un español) was the best way to get into media with the topic of the moment, but with a totally different approach.
Timing
Sometimes you have to be in the right place and in the right moment. This part of luck was also necessary and I could start the campaign in the best posible moment, when the entire country was talking about the same thing.
ElMundo.es Interview
… La web ha tenido visitas de toda España y de 43 países diferentes y blogs y publicaciones especializadas de todo el país, de México o de Francia se han hecho eco de la misma. “Las mejores ideas vienen a menudo cuando se está acorralado: ¿un golpe de genio vinculado a nuestro instinto de supervivencia?” dice sobre Pedrido el site francés‘Influence’.
La web ‘Roastbrief’ de México destaca su “ingenio” y la página española ‘La Criatura Creativa’ incluye su campaña en una lista con los 10 casos más creativos de búsqueda de trabajo en publicidad. La Universidad de Vigo, en la que se licenció, pone su iniciativa como ejemplo en su página web y el portal gallego ‘Código Cero’ hace lo mismo …
+1M audience
Thanks to national media with high audience: Elmundo.es, TVE, Cadena SER…
+50 clippings
Not only national media, but also specialized blogs (Marketing, creativity and HR).
+15.000 visits to the web
From different sources: 1. Media / 2. Google searches / 3. Social Media
Users from +90 countries
Thanks to the repercussion of the campaign in international media.
I was hired!
Repercussion was necessary, but the goal was always to get hired. And it worked!
Social Media · A key factor
Why did it work?
Big companies can create campaigns about whatever they want and get a lot of media coverage, thanks to the money that they invest on it. But if you have not this millions to invest and you also want high media impact, your campaign needs to get viral.
That’s the reason why I created profiles in Facebook and Twitter, in order to generate a bidirectional communication with the followers of the campaign and sharing with them the daily evolution of “Rescata un español”, publishing media clippings…
It all started with my direct Facebook friends, family, professors… who shared the campaign with their audiences, but at the end Facebook represented almost 10% of the total visits to Rescataunespañol.com only after the direct traffic (21%), the interview in Elmundo.es (16%) and the organic results in Google (12%).
Looks like Mr Pablo Pedrido (@Ideaalcubo) and his original campaign are getting ballistic… Good Things, Take Time… http://t.co/ctoJ79o8
— Miguel Silva (@MSilvaConstenla) julio 14, 2012
Consigue trabajo pidiendo que lo “rescaten” http://t.co/6QeCerbF vía @LaVanguardia
— EconomíaLV (@EconomiaLV) octubre 9, 2012
