Shaping talent for HSBC Contact Centres

TMP Worldwide has created an innovative outdoor recruitment campaign for HSBC Contact Centres. The campaign ëWe know talent when we see ití was launched with a live outdoor event in contact centre ëhotspotí Leeds. The event featured a box hedge, a billboard on the busy A38 commuter route into Leeds and a pair of shears.

Throughout the day the 48-sheet billboard, initially covered in a 6ft high hedge was cut by topiary artists gradually revealing six figures and the billboard message ëWe know talent when we see ití and directing people to www.jobs.hsbc.co.uk/cts.

The outdoor event was filmed and this footage, reduced to a snip of a videoclip of 20 seconds, has been used to create a wider campaign including online MPUs, display ads and expandable banners. Plasma screens showing a video of the event appeared in shopping centres and in cinemas in Leeds, Swansea and Hamilton in Scotland - three of HSBC's seven UK contact centres. View the video at HSBCTopiaryVideo.

The event was launched on the 8th October 2007 with the online campaign and cinema advertising appearing until the end of December 2007. The outdoor event caused a lot of attention from the constant stream of cars, some of which did a U-turn so that they could have another look and others stopping in the middle of the road. Statistically, there was 27% uplift in applications the week after the event with applications continuing to rise in the following weeks. There was a 14.5% uplift on visitors to the careers website the launch week.

Tony Ramos, Head of Recruitment Brand and Advertising at HSBC, endorsed the campaign saying: As a progressive brand we are continually looking at innovative ways we get our recruitment message to the marketplace, and attract more candidates.

The outdoor event was conceived from a strategy of uncovering the individual talents of people recruited into HSBCís contact centres. Annelise Jensen, Account Manager at TMP Worldwide, says: ìIn an increasingly competitive marketplace, it was important to find a fresh and unique way to bring 'We know talent' to life for the Bank. TMP, always keen to push boundaries, decided the most impactful way to do this was to literally bring a billboard to life - the 2D to the 3D - and to extend this further, bring the outdoor space indoors through virtual execution on job boards. We are lucky to work with a client that allows us to undertake such innovative ventures and itís great that they can reap the rewards through increased applications.î