Last night, after returning from a business trip, I received the following question on my Blackberry from a reader: “You see Jobster’s video on blog today?” I hadn’t, but went to check it out, along with my other feeds, when I got home.
It had been deleted. What happened?
From my reader’s description, the post - and the video within - may have been too hot for even Jobster, including talk of orgasms and “F” bombs.
Here’s the explanation:
Jobster’s post includes a video of a four-person Jobster team brainstorming ideas for an ad to promote Facebook application. Goldberg is in it. Video starts with him asking the team to kick around ideas. The idea that comes to be the topic of the conversation is that the ad should be of a woman having an orgasm and moaning, ‘Oh, oh, oh, Jobster.’
The team’s laughing and kicking around what might be the best way to do this. For example, ‘would ‘oh, oh, oh JOBSTER,’ be better than, ‘oh Jobster, oh JOBster, OOHH JOBSTER?’ … its really not all that awkward at this point. But at one point he asks one of the girls to demonstrate again how it would sound. It was her idea.
There are two girls at the table. She didn’t do it and the other girl at the table brought up the fact that she already had.
Granted, the girl that was asked to ‘do it again,’ was the one who brought it up in the first place and they all seemed to be laughing … it still seemed to be an awkward moment. From there, brainstorming continues and somehow the Facebook poke is
brought into consideration … seemingly for use as an innuendo, i.e., ‘big poke’, ’super-poke,’ etc.The final idea is Goldberg’s. He thinks out loud something that I can’t remember. But he goes through it ending with, ‘Fuck it. I’m just gonna go get a fucking job.’ (something like that). He’s speaking on behalf of someone who would be in the ad. Not himself.
He laughs and says something like, ‘Damn, we could have used that had I not said ‘fuck.’ … I’m thinking the video, which had an edit in it at some point (you can notice the screen skip slightly), was either not completely edited or the wrong version got posted.
Anyone else see this video?
There are traces of the post’s existence via search and it’s still listed on Recruiting.com, but nothing live. We may never know, but reading the description secondhand, it certainly sounds like poor judgment for an organization and CEO already under the microscope.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:10 am
I saw it, …f words were used. After viewing it I couldn’t understand why they posted it. It had zero value.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I had the same reaction as Chris. It seemed like an odd choice of video given everything that’s gone on there.
I’m sure they meant it as a “ha ha, we’re cool, we can laugh at ourselves” type video, but whoever thought that the general public would think the same made a serious error in judgment.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:31 am
I was wondering this too–I had added a comment asking if they were going to clean up the jobster facegroup book.
(It’s totally useless–all full of click fraud soliciting and “models” looking for “dates.”) When I went back today to look for a response–the post was gone!
Video is still to be found on YouTube, though :)
I am SO glad I don’t work there.
July 20th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
and then there is the part where he disses Facebook in the last ten seconds…claiming it is so yesterday. nice one!
July 20th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Hey folks,
We were having a meeting in which we were getting creative about how we promote our new Facebook application (launching July 26). We were kicking around ad ideas. Mostly we laughed at how silly our ideas were. We were “stepping out of the box” as they say.
“Facebook is so yesterday” was never said. What you might be thinking of is an idea for an ad with the tongue-in-cheek theme of “Facebook is so over… now get a job.” We poked fun at some of the Facebook functionality like pokes and writing on walls, etc. and at the end encouraged Facebook users to check out our Facebook app and find a job.
We had lots of positive feedback from Facebook users - our target audience. It was lighthearted and fun, reflective of life inside Jobster.
An early, unedited video that captured a few minutes of a brainstorm was mistakenly released.
Stay tuned for our new Facebook app and our ad.
July 20th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Joel,
I have to say that Goldberg got you big time.
Jobster: Coincidence or Marketing Judo?
July 20th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Peter, you have got to be kidding…marketing that destroys credibility is not marketing, it is stupidity.
Christian, I think people are afraid that the clip is “reflective of life inside Jobster.” THAT is the issue.
July 21st, 2007 at 1:27 am
Why would they videotape it in the first place? The problem is that they want to be a uber cool Web2.0 company, but the people they sell to are in the corporate world. I am sure that most corporations expect that vendor company leaders and employees act professionally.
If this is what they are releasing, imagine what they do not film
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:17 pm
My search on Chris’ app returned 3 completely irrelevant results from the company Deloitte, when I performed a search for “sales manager” in “Philadelphia”. I was going to give Chris the benefit of the doubt, since his app does carry the CYA “BETA” badge, but upon further examination, the getthejob site that powers this tool returns the same 3 irrelevant results.
Interestingly enough, these same 3 jobs carry the “featured” logo. If their model is similar to Indeed’s, this would be the equivalent of “sponsored” jobs. The same search on either Indeed or Simply Hired actually return relevant sales manager jobs in their sponsored areas.
It looks like this toy is going back to the toy-box. The term “sophomoric” comes to mind. ;)
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Hmmm, not so fast Jim.
“sales manager” jobs in philadelphia
Result 1
District Sales Manager - Tasty Baking Company - Philadelphia, PA
Result 2
Market Sales Manager - Lowes -Philadelphia, PA
Result 3
Branch Sales Manager HFC - HSBC Finance Corporation - Philadelphia, PA
Here is the link http://www.getthejob.com/SearchResult.aspx?q=%22sales%20manager%22&l=philadelphia
Don’t take this stuff so personal. Toy makers never sleep!