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SuperBowl IV

January 31, 2002) - Visit PressEvents to see the HotJobs Superbowl Ad. It features two women in an interview. Every time the interviewer asks a question, the interviewee parrots it back. If you have siblings, you probably remember the powerful way that this form of imitation is able to produce irritation, anxiety and a battle (if Mom isn't watching.) I repeat what you said until you are ready to slug me.

We guess that HotJobs chose the theme because it offers a reasonable approximation of the level of frustration, anxiety and irritation experienced by a job hunter. While the characters and setting are not particularly memorable, the tension is. The spot seems unlikely to win awards but it will be a nagging memory.

In the accompanying video clip, Dimitri Boylan, the CEO at HotJobs, talks about the merger with Yahoo, Monster's worst nightmare and the underlying theme of the ad: finding the fit. We watched it a couple of times and didn't find the theme. That probably doesn't matter. The point of the ad, as Dimitri says, is to raise traffic. The ad will be remembered which means that it meets the basic effectiveness criteria.

Although there has been a good deal written about the potential for overlap between the databases at Yahoo and HotJobs, we have a terribly difficult time imagining that traffic is a primary consideration in the new entity. Yahoo doesn't really seem like a brand management house from our perspective. We're pretty sure that the future of HotJobs includes consumption by the parent.

The real challenges facing the new Recruiting arm of Yahoo involve capitalizing on the wealth of resources that will be newly available while producing increasing volumes of revenue. Begun as a candidate centric business, with fierce limitations on access to third party recruiters, HotJobs has been slow to the current round of experiments in monetizing the candidate. Certainly Yahoo hopes that the company will mine revenues from users and B2B customers alike.

On that front, Monster, whose Superbowl ad promotes their sponsorship of the Olympics, has released a pretty amazing suite of for pay services that target the job hunter as a source of revenue.

- John Sumser

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