Background

JobStreet, Southeast Asia’s largest employment portal with a presence in five SEA countries, was looking to grow its customer base in Malaysia but faced a number of opportunities and challenges due to COVID-19. COVID-19 increased competition for job vacancies, unemployment among new graduates rose by 22.5% in 2020, jumping from 37,200 to 202,400. More than 75% of unemployed graduates were thus spending time at home seeking jobs. With lockdowns, usual acquisition channels for JobStreet (out-of-home billboards, roadshows and career fairs) were no longer effective and ideal advertising platforms. More people including job seekers were home and using their mobiles more to continue accessing the things they need e.g. food deliveries, rides and groceries. Mobile wallet transactions rose 171% in 2020 in Malaysia, and real-time payments transactions surged 864% compared to 2019. Hence, it was an excellent time to reach out to consumers digitally or via apps.

Describe the creative idea

Grab was the perfect platform for JobStreet to reach out to young and tech-savvy first-time job seekers. As Southeast Asia’s leading superapp, Grab is extremely popular in Malaysia, with 20 million users. It was also an everyday, everything superapp—a platform that many Malaysians see and use daily. So we had both assured user reach and usage frequency. Throughout the MCO period, almost 50% of Malaysians actively used Grab, and the superapp had a 60% increase in users. In 2020, GrabFood also had 52%, or the largest share, of the gross merchandise value (GMV) of food delivery in Malaysia. Since Grab users make multiple transactions on the same platform, daily, whether it’s for transport or groceries and food deliveries, we could also capture their attention longer, and in a more focused way. So it was a no-brainer to run the campaign on Grab to reach Job Street’s target audience at scale.

Describe the strategy

To reach out to the large pool of first-time job seekers staying home more, JobStreet ran a campaign with Grab, to build awareness and increase sign-ups among those aged 18 and above. With more job seekers using Grab, the more the app understands their preferences and spending habits. So we could leverage valuable insights from Grab’s first-party data to continually hyper-target segments that were highly relevant to JobStreet’s acquisition campaign, including Business Commuters, Employed, Job Seekers, and High Value GrabFood customers. In order to close the loop and drive conversions, we made sure to dangle irresistible promotions that young adults love: a chance to win RM 15,000 worth of prizes including an iPhone 12, MacBook Air, AirPods Pro and RM5000 worth of Grab vouchers for those who signed up with JobStreet via Grab. Thus creating excitement and curiosity, and driving up click-through rates (CTR).

Describe the execution

On the Grab home screen, we maximised awareness with eye-catching Native Images. Then, we reinforced the message in the midst of their daily transactions with Transport In-Transit and Food In-Transit ads where users would wait for—and check the status of their ride or food delivery that they booked—capturing attention and engagement to the JobStreet ad here. We also made used of dangling attractive prizes with focused messaging to bait-and-hook, using Apple products as the centrepiece of all our messaging, with a simple background colour to draw attention to the prizes. Users simply had to click on the JobStreet ad to be directed to JobStreet’s landing page where they could sign up for a JobStreet account and stand a chance to win RM15,000 worth of prizes, including an iPhone 12, MacBook Air, AirPods Pro and RM5000 worth of Grab vouchers. It was exciting, easy, and almost effortless.

List the results

For a campaign that ran only on one platform, we achieved stunning results, with almost 12M impressions, 3.1M reach, 142K clicks, and a robust 1.18% overall CTR. Approximately 30% of new leads for JobStreet was attributed to this GrabAds campaign alone. Plus, the campaign attracted a sizeable number of sign-ups from students—a key customer category with immense strategic potential for JobStreet. Grab helped JobStreet to launch a timely and successful campaign targeting first-time job seekers looking for a simple way to find jobs. Using attractive tactical offers, we build awareness on our leading superapp that Malaysians love and use daily. Then, we made sure to maximise our chances of conversion at every step by leveraging first-party data insights to hyper-target our target audience. Plus, we continually monitored and fine-tuned our creative assets, ultimately acquiring a large number of new sign-ups for JobStreet in just slightly over a month.