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Rubber Republic News Flash: 20 November 2008

Skills charity uses comedy animation Dudecorp to connect audiences with greatplaces2work

This is a story about a kind of advertising that we like a lot: about what Claude Hopkins called service, what Aesop allegorised as the sun, what Neil Perkin recently referred to as 'goodness and happiness'. It's a story about advertising that entertains and helps its audience, rather than bullying, brow-beating or bombarding them. It's even a love story, a tale of an irresistible match of message and content.

And don't worry: it's also a short story.

greatplaces2work is a charity that enables those looking for a career or change in career to match their strengths and skills within the hospitality, leisure and travel industries. They wanted to take a message of 'careers you'll thrive in' to their target audience in a way that reflected their desire to help people 'make the most of [their] skills and personality'.

Dudecorp is a darkly funny animated miniseries about office life (and death) that we made a couple of years ago because we had some scripts that made us laugh.

greatplaces2work saw in Dudecorp the opportunity to reach their audience and provide them with entertainment - all the while, articulating the thought that perhaps the corporate machine is, er, not the ideal working environment for everyone. We were not going to be the wall to this Pyramus and Thisbe and so were delighted to take on the work.

We've gently repurposed the existing Dudecorp site and assets to work with the greatplaces2work proposition ('get yourself a career you'll thrive -- not die -- in') and have been able to develop some great new Dudecorp content as well.

We're launching the campaign this week with a panoply of targeted seeding, clever embeddable content units, videos, games and, of course, the original Dudecorp microsite.

Now, we're watching and waiting for the happily-ever-after of people finding a career they love because they were entertained by content that advertised a service that was useful to them.

Maybe it'll set a whole new paradigm and put an end to the incessant, aggressive calls from recruitment consultants. Sorry, scratch that last bit, this isn't a fairy story.