TheLadders $100,000 Dollar Experiment

Written by Paul van Veenendaal on October 11th, 2008 |

In 2005 3M came up with a unique ambient ad campaign in Canada to promote its 3M Scotchshield security glass.

The company modified a Vancouver bus shelter ad and filled the unbreakable postersite with stacks of play money, and 500 real Canadian dollars on top to lure Canadians to take an attempt to lay their hands on it by breaking the glass. The idea clicked and many attempted fruitlessly to get access to the banknotes. However, the glass remained intact.

The remarkable idea, created by Rethink Communications, not only gained the public’s attention, also newspapers, tech- & ad blogs and a local news station covered the stunt. Now three years later The Ladders, marketleader in $100K online recruitment, takes 3M’s unique idea one step further …

TheLadders, a popular site (with 2 million members) for job seekers for executive positions that pay more than $100K a year, conducted a social experiment in July in New York, to target recruiters at Fortune 1,000 companies.

Instead of a typical direct mail campaign Fallon, Minneapolis and @radical.media sent out cases with $100,000 in fake money along with the social experiment video.

To make a point to employers about the kind of attention $100,000 can attract TheLadders placed a stack of $100,000 cash (unguarded), protected by a clear shatter-proof plexiglass case, in Columbus Park in Brooklyn and 10 hidden cameras to record the public’s reactions.

Some observers did the classic double-take, while others were so mesmerized that they could only stare and comment and a few attempted to knock the case over. The ad closes with: “The conclusion? $100,000 will attract a lot of people. TheLadders.com helps you attract the right people.”

The video is intriguing, entertaining, worthy of attention, has the perfect length and the idea is executed very well versus Cactus’ :30 commercial. However, I’ve to agree with Experience: The Blog and CarryOn Fresh, who both wrote a great article about the TheLadders $100K experiment, that the campaign lacks social media execution to get links, attention, and traffic.

For example: The video ends with: “Call (866)-799-6973 to find out how TheLadders.com can help your company”. But there’s no reference to microsite in the video? Also there’s no attention whatsoever about the $100K campaign on the frontpage of the career site? And no possibility to embed the video from the microsite or to comment. And I wonder if they use tools like ViralTracker to measure the views on videoportals.

Strangely enough not @radical.media or Fallon uploaded the video first to YouTube, but Nuno Lopes of IGmarketing on October 6th and a day later by Paul Dyer aka NewMediAroused of CarryOn Fresh. And more duplicates today by satsukidabesa from Japan on YouTube and MetaCafe and French bloggers Clément Boutignon of Quietglover and Olivier Mermet. Total views for the video until today, just over 500 on YouTube. And just over 100 on DailyMotion.

In spite of that TheLadders $100K campaign is getting uptake by Creativity Online, The Denver Egotist, CarryOn Fresh, Experience: The Blog, Richter By The Day, Blog du Nuit, Quietglover, Moving Through Life and Anablog23. But no mentions by popular recruitment- or finance blogs yet.

Nobody succeeded to break the 3M security glass, but some people did at TheLadders Experiment tells Al Kelly, ECD at Fallon, to Creativity Online: “We did see a good amount of violence and vandalism, at one point six guys got together tipped it over and it smashed, and the security guards jumped into action.”

How do you rate this campaign and what social media and viral marketing tips do you have to let it fly?

Source: Quietglover, Ad Punch, Marketingshift, Creativity Online

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