Academic Work: ART OF CODE

Credits & Description:

Category: Corporate Communication

Advertiser: ACADEMIC WORK

Product/Service: STAFFING AND RECRUITMENT COMPANY

Agency: NAKED COMMUNICATIONS

Agency: SOCIETY 46

Creative: Christoffer Dymling (Naked Communications)

Account Director: Johan Falk (Naked Communications)

Strategic: Fredrik Svensson (Naked Communications)

Visuliser: Simon Färninger (Naked Communications)

Account Manager: Anna Wallin (Naked Communications)

Production Company: Society46 (Society46)

Media placement: Industry press - - 1/11-2011



Summary of the Campaign

Staffing company, Academic Work, wanted to get the attention of programmers. Knowing that programmers are highly sought after, offering them a job wouldn’t be enough. So we decided to help them with the only obstacle standing in the way between them and true social stardom: The public’s image of them as anti-social nerds, living with their moms. Looking closer we instead saw someone who wanted to push the boundaries of what’s possible, had a high inner motivation, and a love for challenges - traits we otherwise attribute to an artist. Our solution was an art project called, Art Of Code. In it we claimed that programmers are in fact artists. And that they deserved to be praised publicly for their work.



We started of by specially inviting programmers using a language only they would understand, binary code. We spread the invitations through social media, mail, banners and key bloggers/techsites. The invitations lead them to an online exhibition where they could upload their code. Or art as we see it.



The result was a site filled with loads of code that the audience could like and share online. The further set this new image of programmers as artists we created a real art exhibition. A prominent jury decided what pieces should make it there. The exhibition was held in a well-known art gallery in Stockholm and we invited both online tech magazines and broader media to cover the event.



The Situation

Staffing company, Academic Work, wanted to get the attention of programmers and make them choose them when searching for a job. Knowing that programmers are highly sought after right now, offering them a job wouldn’t be enough. We needed to find a new way to reach this hard to please target group and we knew that it wasn’t through a broad TV campaign since they hardly watch it anymore.



The Goal

The goal was to have more programmers searching for a job through Academic Work. The objective of the campaign was to change the programmers’ image of Academic Work into someone they like and could identify with.



To succeed with this we looked closer at the defining traits of a programmer and what made them tick.



The Strategy

When looking closer at the programmers we saw someone who wanted to push the boundaries of what’s possible, had a high inner motivation, and a love for challenges - traits we otherwise attribute an artist.



So we decided to help them with the only obstacle standing in the way between them and social stardom: The public’s image of them as anti-social nerds, living with their moms. Our solution was an art project called, Art Of Code. In it we claimed that programmers are in fact artists. And that they deserved to be praised publicly for their work.



Execution

We started of by specially inviting programmers using a language only they would understand: binary code. We spread the invitations through social media, mail, banners and key bloggers/techsites. The invitations lead them to an online exhibition where they could upload their code - or art, as we see it.



The result was a site filled with loads of code that the audience could like and share online. The further set this new image of programmers as artists we created a real art exhibition. A prominent jury decided what pieces should make it there. The exhibition was held in a well-known art gallery in Stockholm and we invited broader media to cover the event.



Documented Results

The code projects were shown over 80,000 times. With a total amount of 750 hours spent on the site. And over 50% generated from viral.



And by that we enabled Academic Work to deepen their relationships with thousands of programmers.



Both online tech magazines and the biggest cultural TV show in Sweden reported about our idea. With an estimated earned media value of €1.5m we managed to show the public that a programmer deserves a better reputation.