Brief Explanation

BRIEF: In China each year, one-third of the 7 million students that graduate from university are unable to find employment. Due to the oversupply of job applicants, as well as preferred hiring of top students and those with connections, Chinese college graduates are losing hope. How can Unilever encourage the job-seeking efforts of graduates, and, at the same time, revitalize its Chinese toothpaste brand, Zhonghua? IDEA: iSpark – Frontline of Elites A mobile platform to recruit young Chinese into Unilever’s Zhonghua company and actually make the recruiting process fun. Through a point-based competition format, the third, second, and first-place winners of iSpark would respectively win, among other prizes, a visit to the Unilever office, a Unilever internship interview, and a Unilever management trainee interview. Players are divided into 2 groups: “generals,” who have some work experience, and “privates,” recent college grads. After selecting their character, players accumulate points by completing career-related questions and missions. INNOVATION: More than just a recruiting tool/program, our application offers interactive collaboration, community-building, and learning. Players can form teams to help each other and share their experiences, communicating through text or voice messaging. In addition, the iSpark virtual playing field contains hundreds of career-related tips, questions, and training courses to aid inexperienced college graduates in their future endeavors. The iSpark campaign was also promoted everywhere – universities, check-out services, as well as streamed video, social networking, and mobile application sites. IMPACT: iSpark, a fun new approach to the recruitment process, helps Unilever’s Zhonghua stand out. Over 102% more applicants applied this year, while the number of “Likes” on the Zhonghua recruiting page more than doubled, from 30,000 to 64,000.