Monster’s new television commercial suggests that luck is not an external force that comes to some and avoids others; the lucky ones simply choose better
It’s not unusual. Ask people from any walk of life and you will find the most successful are usually the ones who get the rub of the green. They seem to be at the right place at the right time and the best jobs always drop on their laps without so much as a warning.
The natural reaction of the rest of the population vying for the same job—or the winner's cup or something as lame as the window seat in a long-haul flight—is to put it down to that mysterious force: luck.
The lucky ones will say otherwise. As the cliché goes: The harder you work, the luckier you get.
Taking a cue from this insight, Monster India, a leading online career and recruitment resource, has unveiled a new television commercial (TVC) that suggests that we can be lucky simply by choosing the right options. Right options as in going to the right destination to find the right job. The TVC opens with the shot of two young men sitting at the reception of a corporate office, presumably a prestige employer, discussing each other’s prospects.
Both the men appear very certain about landing the job because lady luck, they seem to believe, is on their side. Quite literally. If Prospect 2 has a horse-shoe with him, Prospect 1 has a string of nimbu-mirchi (also supposed to ward off bad luck) on his person. If Prospect 2 is armed with a mélange of amulets, Prospect 1 has an over-sized evil eye in his bag.
As the whole exchange boils down to a game of one-upmanship, a third gentleman emerges from the interview room, boss in tow, job offer in hand. Job offer? “Iska luck solid hoga,” says one of the unlucky prospects. Now comes the clincher. The man with the job digs into his pocket and fishes out his iPhone which has the Monster App on screen. The voiceover says, “Get lucky. Get active on monster.com.”
The idea is to demonstrate that luck is not an external force that comes to some and avoids others; the lucky ones simply do more to be lucky.
The new TVC is built around Monster’s new brand positioning ‘Find Better’. “The three planks of ‘Find Better’ are better access, better connections and better jobs,” says Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster.com (India/Middle East/Southeast Asia). The promise of better access, connection and therefore better jobs is supported by a revamped website and Monster TV and novel mobile applications to boot.
The company says over the last couple of years a lot of effort has gone into making these promises a reality. Take access. The company has focused on three different platforms — the internet, mobile and television — to improve access. A key move in this direction was overhauling the company website. In its new avatar, the Monster India website aims to provide users with an improved user interface coupled with a simple and clutter-free presentation of information. The idea behind the overhaul is to increase the ease of navigation on the website.
Then there is Monster India’s Rozgarduniya.com, launched in partnership with ITC e-choupal network, aimed to improve access for job seekers in rural India. “The initiative aims to bridge the divide between urban and rural recruitment in India through a multi-lingual job portal for rural job seekers where they can find relevant jobs in their own geographies and recruiters interested in recruiting in rural areas can find the right resources,” adds Modi.
Going mobile
With a huge mobile subscriber base in the country (the total mobile phone base in the country to 911.17 million in February 2012, according to TRAI), the company would have been unwise to leave this medium alone. To tap this fast growing medium, Monster has launched Monster Mobile Solutions that boasts of Monster applications across all mobile platforms. The launch of latest iPhone and iPad applications completed the Monster Mobile Solutions portfolio which already had Android, Blackberry and Windows applications. The company has also launched a WAP portal to help seekers and employers to access Monsterindia.com from wherever they are. With this launch Monster India became the first company to have a WAP portal for employers.
In a sense, Monster pioneered jobs on television with the launch of Monsterjobs Active in collaboration with Dish TV. The objective behind the initiative was to reach out to the jobseekers who have limited access to the internet. “Monsterjobs Active was launched to help jobseekers to search for jobs across the country from the convenience of their homes,” says Modi.
The company realises that video consumption on the internet is growing and jobseekers are increasingly consuming relevant video content for career enhancement. To capitalise on this Monster India has launched Monster TV, a first of its kind career channel, on Youtube. The channel will act as a repository of high quality user generated video content.
There is an increasing demand among jobseekers, says the company, for relevant content beyond regular articles, reports and blogs. The channel has been designed keeping in mind the requirement of the jobseeker and the videos range from job/interview tips to industry buzz to hiring trends to relevant seeker services, among a host of other things.
Monster’s promise of better connections rests on the two pillars of BeKnown and Monster College. Last year Monster India launched BeKnown, a professional networking app designed to allow people who use Facebook to establish a professional network on the world’s most popular social site. With BeKnown, people can seamlessly identify and connect with friends and professional contacts from multiple sources, growing their professional network.
On its part, Monster College has been designed to connect colleges and corporations thereby simplifying campus hiring. “Monster College thrives on our in-depth understanding of the employment needs of both employers and job seekers,” says Modi. For educational institutes Monster College opens up the opportunity to leverage the website’s extensive reach in the corporate world by connecting them to over 20,000 employers across various industries. This paves the way for recent graduates to explore new career opportunities. On their part, companies can uncover the most qualified and skilled candidates.
Net result: Better jobs.
“Job hunting is a serious affair and we thought the best way to connect with the target audience is to make things lighter — by leading them to the right place rather than putting down the facts in black and white,” sums up Modi. “The internet population is smart; you have to speak to them in their language.”
