Why is this work relevant for PR?

In the situation of most serious labor shortage ever, this campaign made a huge conversation about working style diversity in Japan. Conventional thinking about recruiting workers started to change. Though this campaign includes “advertisement”, the process of making conversation and consensus is truly PR.

Background

Solving Japan’s most serious labor shortage ever requires a paradigm shift. 50.3% of companies are experiencing a shortage of full-time workers. The declining birthrate and aging population are creating the most challenging employee recruitment environment ever in Japan, and it is expected to become even more serious in the next 40 years due to the shrinking labor pool. To address this issue, we consider it necessary to make a major paradigm shift in the areas of recruiting and hiring.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We leveraged the first day in the recruitment process for college graduates to generate discussion of #StopRecruiting, which describes a new paradigm for business in which diverse work styles are recognized. Lancers is a crowdsourcing service and online platform for freelance workers. On June 1, 2019, we placed an opinion advertisement in morning edition of Nikkei that challenged conventional thinking about recruiting workers in Japan. Thanks to the power of the Internet, individuals have become capable of working independently, anytime and anywhere. There are many freelance workers who are just as passionate about contributing to the company they affiliate as the company’s regular employees. Utilizing the capabilities of these individuals will lead to a better future for Japan. In the hope of creating a society that recognizes diversity in employment and work styles, we called upon freelancers nationwide to tweet their opinions using the hashtag #StopRecruiting.

Describe the strategy (30% of vote)

50.3% of companies are experiencing a shortage of full-time workers. The declining birthrate and aging population are creating the most challenging employee recruitment environment ever in Japan, and it is expected to become even more serious in the next 40 years due to the shrinking labor pool. To address this issue, we consider it necessary to make a major paradigm shift in the areas of recruiting and hiring.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Lancers is a crowdsourcing service and online platform for freelance workers. On June 1, 2019, we placed an opinion advertisement in morning edition of Nikkei that challenged conventional thinking about recruiting workers in Japan. Thanks to the power of the Internet, individuals have become capable of working independently, anytime and anywhere. There are many freelance workers who are just as passionate about contributing to the company they affiliate as the company’s regular employees. Utilizing the capabilities of these individuals will lead to a better future for Japan. In the hope of creating a society that recognizes diversity in employment and work styles, we called upon freelancers nationwide to tweet their opinions using the hashtag #StopRecruiting.

List the results (30% of vote) – must include at least two of the following tiers:

SEO statistics showed that we attained a total of 180 million organic impressions thanks to achievements such as a No. 1 ranking in Twitter’s trend words list, top position among SmartNews articles, top position among NewsPicks articles, top position among Yahoo! Japan news articles, and No.1 among attention-grabbing articles read by people in their 30s. As a result, traffic to Lancer’s website increased 1,000 percent, and the number of registered corporate members grew 300 percent. The first day of the recruitment process for new grads became an opening day for discussion of diverse work styles.

Please tell us about the challenger brand and how your campaign challenged/was different from your competitors

We leveraged the first day in the recruitment process for college graduates to generate discussion of #StopRecruiting, which describes a new paradigm for business which diverse work styles are recognized. Lancers is a crowdsourcing service and online platform for freelancers. Since the company is a small start-up, no body will pay attention. So we focussed the message on a single day. On June 1, 2019, we placed an advertisement in morning edition of Nikkei that challenged conventional thinking about recruitment in Japan. Thanks to the power of the Internet, individuals become capable of working independently, anytime and anywhere. There are freelancers who are passionate about contributing to the company they affiliate. Utilizing the capabilities of these individuals will lead to a better future for Japan. In the hope of creating a society that recognizes diversity in employment and work styles, we called upon freelancers to tweet their opinions using #StopRecruiting.