New Monster Site Project Focuses On Millennials

Rivaling the listicle, character-revealing questionnaires are currently trending among millennials, and the advertisers that love them.

Take Project You -- a new microsite from Monster, which promises young users a better of understanding of themselves (and their career goals) simply by answering some Myers-Briggs-like questions. 

Aiming for real personal insights, Monster enlisted academics professor Jean Twenge and researcher Brad Smith to incorporate their own methodologies and algorithms into the site. Tied to visitors’ social graphs, the goal is to uncover potentially beneficial traits and connections in ones' digital lives.  

Developed by BBDO NY, along with digital production partner Modern Assembly, Project You was conceived as a way to make Monster more approachable to young people.

“Monster is optimized as a transactional site,” Ted Gilvar, CMO Monster, said on Wednesday. “We wanted to create a way in for millennials.” After logging in with their Facebook account or email address, visitors are led through a series of modules that focus on various areas of personal development.

These modules include “Find Your Weak Connections,” a new Facebook application that identifies job opportunities at the places of work of friends, and “What Do Your Words Say About You?” a text analyzer that uses artificial intelligence to help ensure a user’s cover letter sends the right tone to potential employers.

Ultimately, the site is meant to help users pinpoint areas in their life that could be improved, while offering some personalized career advice.

In the context of the roughly $100 million that Monster spends every year on marketing, Gilvar said Project You required a “pretty small” investment. Setting a low bar for success, Gilvar characterized the site as an experiment. “We’re not looking at this to be a runaway hit,” he said. “If it does well, we’ll be happy to invest in more in the site.”

Along with plugging Project You across Monster’s existing social channels, the company is planning a modest online media buy.

Dear to many marketers’ hearts, millennials consistly make up about one-third of Monster’s customer base, according to Gilvar. Trying to increase that share, Monster partnered with Pivot, a new TV network for young viewers, last year.

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