FINALLY, SOMEONE'S DONE THE CREATIVE TEST I always wanted to do—between the warm, kids-and-puppies commercial and the satirical version of the same idea. And guess what: funny beat the pants off fuzzy.
This is according to The Industry Standard (April 26, 1999), which reported that two find-a-job websites ran essentially the same commercial in early ‘99, each built on the fairly obvious idea of kids talking about their hopes for their careers.
Monster.com did a widely heralded (and quite arresting) spot in which the kids make ironic statements like “I want to claw my way up to middle management” and “I want a brown nose.” CareerPath.com, on the other hand, took the earnest approach, showing kids who aspire to be inventors and astronauts and such things.
Both placed heavy media schedules in January and February. The result?
Monster.com's cynical take resulted in an impressive 30% increase in traffic, to a 3.9 audience reach (meaning 3.9% of all Web users visited the site—at work, presumably). CareerPath.com also saw a bump from its warm and fuzzies—but of only 6%, to a much more modest 1.7 reach.
It’s enough to restore your faith in cynicism.
