If you thought Morgan Stanley was an 82-year-old investment firm that has more in common with naps than snaps, you’d probably be right, but don’t tell it that. The company does all it can to associate itself with youth and energy, as evidenced by its website and recruitment marketing.
Morgan Stanley’s homepage highlights a drone aside the headline “A New Frontier for Tech Innovation,” and looks more like a blog or an Instagram feed than a company selling stocks, bonds, and pork bellies. So, it’s no surprise that the company uses Snapchat, the calling card of today’s youth, to nab newly minted college grads to fill their job openings.
“We have to be where the students are,” said Lisa Manganello, head of integrated brand marketing at Morgan Stanley, in a recent interview with Ellen Chang. “We want to build on the momentum and leverage and it fits naturally with student behaviors.”
Ah, yes, the old fish-where-the-fish-are strategy. Indeed, if you want to get in front of college students, there are worse places then Snapchat, the mobile app that started out as a disappearing messaging app and now has its sights on a media empire of user-generated content and curated stories brought to you by reputable publishers. In fact, 71 percent of Snapchat users are under 34 years old and 45 percent of Snapchat users are aged between 18-24, according to Omnicore.
It’s not just Morgan Stanley that’s using Snapchat to recruit, of course. In June, you may recall McDonald’s went all-in on Snap by using the service to help it hire 250,000 burger flippers and drive-thru workers. “I’m not surprised by McDonalds’ move to leverage Snap for summer hires,” Lars Schmidt, founder of Amplify//, said at the time. “The key driver for recruitment marketing is showing up where your audience resides. Snap is a platform where many in their target market use daily, so it’s a natural place to reach them. This doesn’t mean Snap is right for every company, but if the audience you’re trying to attract is there, you may want to invest in Snap.”
A fast-food joint that serves up Happy Meals can be expected to use something like Snapchat to hire young folks for hourly positions, but Morgan Stanley is looking for college-educated 20-somethings to occupy its desks and offices. One can deduce then, that Snapchat has taken a big leap forward in attracting reputable employers. You may not need someone who can enunciate “Want fries with that?” but you may need an MBA from Northwestern.
Highbrow companies who dismiss Snapchat as a medium for greasy burgers and salty fries should now take notice. Snapchat is making strides to becoming a legitimate advertising platform. Need more proof? In addition to Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan actually started testing Snapchat as a recruiting tool last year.
JPMorgan told Business Insider back then that “our social media presence is truly worldwide. Whether we’re Periscoping from Dubai or live Tweeting in French from Paris, we want to reflect the global cultures of JPMorgan.” The publication added, “The world’s biggest banks no longer compete with just each other to rake in top talent — they now battle with the likes of Google, Facebook, and a burgeoning raft of upstart technology companies for the best minds.”
After initial campaigns, Morgan Stanley is taking things to another level. Students across 27 colleges and universities in the U.S. are now able to take selfies with the Snapchat’s geofilter, which has a Morgan Stanley theme of a school pennant. Some of the schools it’s targeting include Brown, Rutgers, Villanova, Harvard, Penn, and Howard.
You don’t need a filter to advertise on Snapchat anymore, however. Similar to the self-service offerings from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, Snapchat now gives anyone the means to advertise with just a little know-how. Visit the website for more information.
The number of advertising options businesses currently have to showcase their job opportunities is already cluttered. And it’s getting noisier, as offerings from the usual suspects, as well as the likes of Reddit and Pinterest, litter the landscape. Snapchat, however, is giving itself a better-than-average chance of being a must-have for those looking to hire young people with each new advertiser is attracts. If Snapchat is good enough for Morgan Stanley, it’s probably good enough for you.