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The advertising agency Pol recently won what is referred to in the advertising industry as a prestigious award, namely Bring's DM Award, for a recruitment campaign the agency created for Vy Buss. DM is the advertising industry's term for direct marketing where the recipient receives something physical, such as customer newsletters, letters, brochures and product samples.
The idea behind the campaign was to capture the attention of truck drivers while they were at work. Truck drivers were chosen as the target group since they have a shorter path than most to becoming a bus driver.
To achieve this, a job advertisement from Vy Buss in Trondheim was printed out and mounted on a 2-meter-high box. The advertising agency then ordered the box to be transported by all the major transport companies in Trondheim. For the drivers who picked up the box, it was practically impossible not to get the message.
According to the jury behind Bring's DM award, the campaign was an example of "smart, tangible and precisely targeted DM work."
"This year's winner shows what physical DM can be when distribution is not just a channel – but the idea itself. Instead of sending a message to the target group, the message was turned into a mission. A massive, physical construction had to be carried by the very people you wanted to reach. This made the exposure impossible to overlook – because the recipient himself was in the middle of the delivery," the jury writes in its justification.
But even though the campaign was well received in the advertising industry, and was also popular among employees locally at Vy Buss in Trondheim, it is clearly facing criticism from the trucking industry.
– We were not happy with that campaign. We think it was an overstep, says Marketing Director Kjell Olafsrud at the Norwegian Truck Owners' Association.
– We work a lot with recruitment, and we have worked a lot with the project “Follow the dream – not the flow”. In that project, we do not differentiate between trucks and buses, we have focused on getting young people to become professional drivers.
– Have you had a dialogue with Vy Buss about this?
– Yes, we have had that, but we probably didn't get much understanding for our point of view. But we live with it just fine. We don't sleep badly at night because of this. And we can't really say that the competition from the bus industry is fierce.
– What are you thinking about?
– Just look at the statistics among those who take a vocational certificate as a professional driver. There you can see how many – or how few – choose to become bus drivers. That's not where the bus drivers are recruited, says Olafsrud.
He believes the bus industry must look at what it can do to retain more drivers.
– We should not underestimate the challenges the bus industry has, especially with recruitment in urban areas with the shift arrangements they have there. It is not difficult to understand that it is not that attractive, and it is actually a societal problem. You have to be willing to pay the driver properly and have shifts you can live with. That is what the bus industry needs to figure out, says Olafsrud before adding:
– This is not strictly speaking something we should spend time on, we have enough challenges within our own ranks. But the goal should be to work together to recruit more professional drivers.
