Attracting young talent to Croatia's IT department

Croatia osiguranje is a leader in the insurance industry. With the rise of workplace digitization, they’re faced with an ever-growing need for young IT talent on their team. The problem is that this talent tends to gravitate toward burgeoning startups and exciting tech companies, which make the world of insurance seem bland and boring by comparison.

So, to help Croatia osiguranje stand out as an employer of choice for young IT-ers, we came up with “Aj ti razvali” (meaning "crush IT” in Croatian) – an employer branding campaign promoting its unique IT internship program, with the goal of communicating the concrete benefits of life at CO — in the language of the youth. In the end, we had to shut down the campaign earlier than planned, because the results just absolutely crushed it.

How do I explain my IT job to my grandparents?

Any young person that gets a job in IT knows it’s not always easy to explain their new jobs to their parents and grandparents. But when a young person gets a job at Croatia osiguranje — now, that’s something the older folks can understand. And once they get it, it’s time to wish their kids well and tell them to “crush it” at their new jobs.

That’s how we came up with “Aj ti razvali” — a fresh, fun employer branding campaign for its IT internship program. To promote it and invite young people to sign up, the campaign had to convey the benefits of life at Croatia osiguranje in the language of the youth. We created a young, fun visual identity that was a first in the world of insurance.
With a mobile-first approach, we communicated our main message through a series of personalized stickers and witty chats that our young IT professionals could use to tell their parents how they’d be building their careers at Croatia osiguranje. 

Targeting our efforts to tech-minded young Croatians

We wanted to reach Croatian STEM students aged 18-30 from all over the country. Spending the bulk of our budget on social media, we pushed a slew of varied, mobile-first creative messaging, and focused our efforts on fun video animations that clearly communicate the benefits to our target audience.

• 46% of our budget spent on Facebook and Instagram advertising.

• The remainder went to LinkedIn, where more and more students are actively looking for jobs.

• All our ads led to CO's employer branding website - Smart Careers - where users could find detailed information about the program and register in just a few clicks. 

We exceeded our KPI by 64%

In the end, we crushed our KPIs in the first two weeks and had to end the campaign a week early.

• We collected 264 applications, beating our goal by 164 - getting 48 applications in the first two days alone.

• Over the course of the campaign, Smart Careers web visitors increased by over 1200%.

• Facebook and Instagram ads reached over 250,000 users.

Awards won

MIXX Awards Croatia — Direct Response and Lead Generation

“This campaign ended with miraculous results, and our partners at 404 crushed it. Employer branding is extremely important to us, and the 404 team nailed the approach to bringing us closer to the types of employees we want and need on our side. This project is a perfect example of what client-agency collaboration is supposed to look like, and we’re sure that many more successes like this one await us in our future with 404.”

— Tihomir Vedriš, communications expert at Croatia osiguranje