KPMG: Graduate Recruitment
by Nick Wright
Amplify were engaged by KPMG to develop the overriding proposition for their graduate recruitment campaign 2007-2008 including the supporting creative look, feel and tone.
The main aim for the KPMG campaign was to:
‘Get the right number of the right people to attend the KPMG Live experiences and consider a career with KPMG’
Amplify reviewed all of KPMG’s on campus activity and identified a key focus area, namely its European offering. From this came the ‘big idea’: ‘We don’t offer our graduates the world... just Europe’. This was a self-deprecating way of showing students that KPMG have real European opportunities for their graduates, a different angle to some of KPMG’s competitors who utilise bribery tactics to entice students. This proposition was further communicated through the headline ‘Want to play in Europe?’ and included variations to engage with an international audience.
On the design side, Amplify overcame the poster blindness that most graduate recruiters face on campus by enhancing the ‘live feel’ of the posters. An ‘event style’ was used as opposed to a corporate, traditional advertising type communication.
The on campus experience was brought to life through:
European breakfast
- Promotional teams on branded grocery bikes giving away free pretzels in branded paper bags as a traffic driver/awareness generator.
- Teams on hand to communicate the events on a one-to-one basis.
Luggage tags
- Giant luggage tags placed in key locations around campus to raise awareness of the live events.
- Smaller versions attached to bicycles on campus.
Boarding Pass Flyers
- Flyers in the style of boarding passes placed in students’ pigeonholes and handed out one-to-one on campus.
Magnets
- Business card-sized magnets placed on bikes, fridges and other metal objects around campus.
- Deemed as high value, so were taken (‘nicked’) by the students thereby ensuring longer-term exposure.
Man in a suitcase
- As a stunt, Amplify also placed a man in a suitcase on campus to create noise and awareness of the proposition.
- This was achieved through a contortionist inside a suitcase with his legs poking out of the bottom, which allowed him to walk around the campus inside the case.
- This made lots of noise and generated lots of conversation about KPMG.
This campaign was massively successful for KPMG and raised the attendance at the live events by 177%.
