We opened up a world of opportunity with an employer branding campaign for APM Terminals, one of the world’s leading cargo container terminal operators, that included a microsite, four-color magazine ads, billboards and HR recruitment ads.

Situation

APM Terminals is one of the world’s leading cargo container terminal operators with locations in 51 countries. As the global commercial industry boomed and goods were shipped in and out of port destinations, APM Terminals had an urgent need to recruit upwards of 20,000 employees to fill existing and new positions.

In a highly specialized industry with specific skill sets, APM Terminals needed to recruit at executive, blue collar, managerial and white collar and administrative levels through a rigorous application and hiring process. And just to make it more challenging for APM’s communications teams, this was all being done concurrently with a new corporate re-positioning.

Solution

The new corporate re-positioning for APM Terminals responded to the need for clearer differentiation based on emotional business benefits in their commoditized industry. The strength of APM Terminals is in its people, and their new tagline — Open for Opportunity — captured that promise and became the catalyst for an aggressive recruitment campaign. “When Can You Start?” was a question that implied the urgency and seriousness of their hiring effort, and the heart of the campaign was a robust microsite — whencanyoustart.com — featured corporate information, video and written stories from actual employees, terminal photos, and links to current job postings on the main APM Terminals website.

External four-color magazine ads, outdoor and airport poster campaign and bus sides drove audiences to the microsite. CoreBrand also created a global template for black-and-white HR recruitment ads that carried the same style of humanistic messages as the magazine ads.