monster playing catch-up w/careerbuilder in msnbc deal
April 10th, 2008
Remember 2003 when Monster (MNST) failed to resign their multi-million dollar deals with MSN and AOL, and thus lost the real estate to rival CareerBuilder? If not, here’s a blast from the past.
The steal was arguably the beginning of the end for Monster’s reign and a clear sign of its growing arrogance. Former CEO Jeff Taylor’s remark of “we are now focused on implementing multiple marketing strategies on the national and local levels” hasn’t work out so well.
Years since and Monster has likely learned its lesson. Realizing that competing on a local level can be a real bitch, they’ve spent millions on newspaper partnerships recently. And now, a new partnership with MSNBC could symbolize a rebirth of past strategies.
Having developed a co-brand, Monster will power the job search section throughout MSNBC’s online properties, including the Today show, which, according to reports will put Monster content in front of 35 million MSNBC.com users each month. Unless things change, however, a link to the career center isn’t that easy to find, so that number should be viewed as significantly lower for any employer getting a sales pitch.
The question now, of course, is whether or not moves such as this are too little, too late. Readers won’t be surprised to learn I they are. Monster can’t buy its way back from the abyss. Something more radical needs to occur.
April 10th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
I think careerbuilder really gets it. Their marketing has been awesome. And their superbowls ads actually tugged a little at the heartstrings - especially the one with the tiny walking heart that quits its job :)
it is surprising because they’ve seemingly come out of nowhere.
This may sound heavy, but I think they’re really tapping into the american workforce’s psyche (as it is today).
April 10th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Interesting! When Monster walked away from relationships with MSN and AOL in 2003 I shared information with them about traffic from these sites - AOL was the majority from what I recall but MSN was still respectable. At the time I was leading employment initiatives for Federated Department Stores, Macy’s Inc., and our data indicated that over 60% of our Monster traffic was from these two sites. They didn’t believe it. Prior to that Federated didn’t have an agreement with CareerBuilder. That was definitely the catalyst for pursuing a CB relationships. What I saw subsequently was that the flow from Monster continued to decrease and of course budgets had to be reallocated. It will be interesting to see if they can build this back up.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Careerbuilders superball adds got the worst reviews. Who is AOL and MSN? The real traffic is on Yahoo! or Google.
Editor’s note: This comment was posted by someone connected to a Yahoo Corporate IP address.