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Orchard creates recruitment campaign for Decathlon Sports

The agency chose Facebook as a participation platform, with conversations being mirrored on Twitter and Linkedin. The campaign has now gone viral

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Orchard creates recruitment campaign for Decathlon Sports

Orchard creates recruitment campaign for Decathlon Sports

The agency chose Facebook as a participation platform, with conversations being mirrored on Twitter and Linkedin. The campaign has now gone viral

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | October 29, 2012

publive-imageOrchard Advertising, Bangalore, has recently created a first-of-its kind digital recruitment campaign for Decathlon Sports India, a subsidiary of Decathlon Sports International of France, which has gone viral.

Orchard chose Facebook as a participation platform, with conversations being mirrored on Twitter and Linkedin. The target is to hire 100+ sports enthusiasts over the two-month campaign period across departments – Stores/IT/Logistics/Finance/Legal/Real Estate, etc., across the country. The campaign started with an online teaser that ran for five days, which spoke of job opportunities for sports lovers. On Day 6, the recruitment campaign was revealed through five short films made specifically for the digital medium. The films showed various sports enthusiasts who were misfits in their current jobs, and were probably better off working for Decathlon where they can find like-minded people who appreciate their passion for sport (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAia3DxBn7PoMhQSOAQ9Kn2cyd-CA1zX-).

publive-image Anish Daryani

Anish Daryani, VP and Branch Head, Orchard, said, “Our initial brief was to work on a simple recruitment ad. The most obvious thing was to recommend a print campaign that would reach millions of people and invite CVs. However, we identified two key challenges. One, that outside Bangalore, not too many people were aware of Decathlon, and so the response a print ad would generate was questionable. Secondly, Decathlon has a strong culture of hiring sports passionate people. Everyone who works at Decathlon, from the sales personnel to the CEO himself, actively plays and promotes sport. Hence, a print campaign would never allow us to sieve out the sports-passionate people from among the respondents. Our approach, therefore, was to design a digital campaign that would create awareness about Decathlon in India and also get relevant enquiries from people who are passionate about sports. “

The films, made by production house Nirvana Films, and released on YouTube, were posted for fans to see on Facebook. All people had to do was to 'like' the “Work for sport” page on Facebook ( and click on the “Apply Now” tab ( This was a special application created on Facebook which allows one to see jobs available, job descriptions, requisite qualifications, and apply. In addition to this, applicants had to create a video expressing their passion for sport and Decathlon and post a link on the application.

WATConsult, a Mumbai-based digital agency, was roped in to develop the application and manage the social media conversations over the two month of the campaign.

The recruitment campaign seems to have gone viral, with over 22,500 fans on Facebook in under a month. Loads of video applications have started pouring in, a selected few of which are being showcased on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAia3DxBn7PptBTOS_IuYdvFcy9_M-zex).

Daryani further said, “The most exciting part about working with Decathlon is that they already have a strong 'human purpose' – the democratisation of sports in India. It gives us an opportunity to exploit our creative ideas to tackle some key social issues pertaining to sports in India. We are in a timeline that calls for a change in human behaviour, and that's exactly where the proprietary HumanKind philosophy of The Leo Group comes into play. I think our ability to understand the Decathlon brand and use this to think on new media opportunities calls for a beginning of this great partnership. Moreover, in Decathlon, we've found a client that's willing to try out new things, junk clichés, and open up to fresh ideas.”

Thomas Xavier, Chairman and National Creative Director, Orchard Advertising, commented, “It is rare to get an opportunity to work on a brand that is so strongly inclined to bring about a social change. The strong ethos of the brand gives us an opportunity to push ourselves towards a larger cause.”

Decathlon is a French sports equipment and sportswear retail company founded in 1976. Decathlon Sports India is the Indian subsidiary of Decathlon Sports and works on a wholesale cash and carry model providing for “all sport under one roof”.

Orchard Advertising is one of the three agency brands of the Leo Burnett Group in India.

Credits:

Agency: Orchard Advertsing

National Creative Director: Thomas Xavier

Creative Director (Art): Sagar Prajapati

Associate Creative Director (Copy): Salil Sawale

Copywriter: Tanya Onkar

Account Management: Anish Daryani

Brand Team: Ashish Sapre, Nicholas Sequeira, Shefali Surve

Account Planning: Anish Daryani, Rohit Mani

Production House: Nirvana Films

Producer: Ramya Rao

Director: Vishnu Shyamprasad

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

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