How can a payroll company get the attention of business owners, human resource workers, college students and YouTube surfers? Easy — they just have to hire one of the greatest comedy groups in history. While many companies continue to waste money on poor quality marketing campaigns and cheap videos, Paycor has raised the bar by enlisting The Second City to showcase their services. With their new Internet video ads, Paycor propels itself to the top of its industry and offers a strategy any company can follow.
Watch the Paycor video here.
Second City has launched the careers of some of the top names in the business, including John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Mike Myers, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and Tina Fey. For an improv-based comedy team, moving from skits to marketing videos is easy. By following the classic formula of making fun of work problems and office mishaps, Second City has pumped out a series of Payroll Lover videos that remind audiences and human resources professionals of “The Office” with ‘Paperwork Obsession,’ as well as the horrors of running every aspect of your own business with ‘I Love Payroll.’
Before this marketing campaign, Paycor was simply a payroll company that relied on personal customer service and smart software. Now, they’ve earned more name recognition and a top spot in marketing ingenuity. Whether working in HR or as a business owner, people often hate doing payroll. In an effort to stand out, Paycor has highlighted the worst aspects of the payroll process, the problems that come up and the difficulty in working with payroll company call centers. Paycor shares its alternative approach, focusing on direct contacts and easy-to-use software.
There is more to learn from Paycor’s new ad campaign than its own services. While competitive payroll companies will struggle to catch up, businesses in other fields should take note. Videos have dominated the Internet, yet companies have not truly captured the full potential of quality video marketing. Boring video ads that do not engage audiences with humor, shock, conflict or story cannot hold interest long enough to get an effective message across. Other companies, like Apple, have successfully relied on beautiful design, art direction and simplicity in their video campaigns; however, these are expensive and require brand recognition. Paycor has struck a balance by presenting a high-quality video with humorous characters that weave in marketing messages about the company.
Second City’s partnership with Paycor has set a high standard of excellence other companies will need to follow. When a marketing campaign can break through to all demographics, it has a greater chance of getting shared throughout the online community. Both employees and business owners frustrated with payroll services will share these videos, but even comedy lovers and younger audiences will increase Paycor’s social traffic. Few people, if any, will forward a regular ad to coworkers who handle the payroll, but humorous videos like Paycor’s are bound to spread across offices throughout the country. If all video ads were this good, the Internet would be a much different place.