Reemployment Campaign

                                                      News Release

CONTACT:    Dawn Van Houten                                                     FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

                        (314) 889-3365                                                           May 29, 2014

Fifth Third Bank Launches ‘Reemployment’ Campaign;

Dedicates Marketing Effort To Help Job Seekers Get Back to Work Sooner

Cincinnati – Fifth Third Bank is using its advertising to help people find a job. Curious, isn’t it? But that’s just what Fifth Third Bank and agency of record Leo Burnett are doing in a new campaign, Reemployment, launching today. The campaign features actual job seekers participating in Fifth Third’s reemployment program with NextJob, a national reemployment solutions company.

Tweet this news: Can a bank help people find jobs? @FifthThird answers with new campaign:  Reemployment. 53.com/reemploy.

In addition to leveraging its advertising media to help job seekers reach prospective employers, Fifth Third is encouraging the public to use social media to give the candidates even more exposure and to help additional job seekers.

Fifth Third piloted the first-of-its-kind reemployment program in 2012. The Bank identified mortgage customers who were behind in their payments due to job loss and offered to help them land a new job with NextJob’s comprehensive job search program. The assistance included one-on-one job coaching, NextJob’s proprietary online training program, called the Job Seeker’s Toolkit, and weekly coach-led job club webinars. On average, participants had been out of work for 22 months and were long-term unemployed. After six months, nearly 40 percent had landed jobs. The two companies deployed the full program to mortgage borrowers in 2013 and quickly extended availability of the Job Seeker’s Toolkit to all Fifth Third online customers.

The Bank now launches an unprecedented campaign to showcase three actual job seekers: Katrina Holmes, Elba Pena and Bill Laakkonen to engage the public—customers, friends, family members and community members—to share their stories and help them return sooner to meaningful employment. By visiting 53.com/reemploy, the public can utilize their own social networks to expand the job seekers’ reach, especially with potential employers, in ways that would be otherwise impossible. For every 53 retweets, Fifth Third will fund a job search coaching package for another unemployed person.

The campaign also features Fifth Third customer Randall Jackson, a Chicago resident who actively engaged with the Bank’s reemployment initiative with NextJob. Jackson recently landed a job after being long-term unemployed. Sharing his story via social media will inspire other job seekers, and contribute to the funding of additional job coaching scholarships.

“With this campaign, Fifth Third and Leo Burnett have developed a strikingly creative approach to help our job seekers while engaging the public in a shared mission to impact unemployment," said John Courtney, CEO of NextJob. "It's a brilliant way to connect people to their neighbors on one of the most meaningful issues that affects us as a nation.”

During the campaign period, Fifth Third and NextJob are opening up access to the online Job Seeker’s Toolkit to every unemployed job seeker interested in finding their next job. Further, Fifth Third will fund up to 53 one-on-one coaching scholarships for people who apply through NextJob’s application tool. The scholarships will include four months of personalized job search assistance and anyone can apply regardless of whether or not they are a Fifth Third customer. 

The campaign will operate from the online hub, 53.com/reemploy, where the candidates’ resumes come to life via short documentary videos and infographics, humanizing and adding dimension to traditional resumes. The campaign also utilizes seeded video and pre-roll as well as flash and rich media banners across high profile websites, networks, and social media, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. 

“Helping our customers find reemployment is a perfect illustration of the curiosity of Fifth Third Bank,” said Maria Veltre, senior vice president & chief marketing officer. “Our program evolved from the question of how to help unemployed people keep their homes and led to the answer to even bolder question, ‘how do we get our customers back to work?’ We are extremely proud of our relationship with NextJob, and are eager to help these job seekers—and many more—gain employment from this unique approach to a digital advertising campaign.”

Jon Wyville, executive vice president and executive creative director, Leo Burnett, said, “Most advertisers promote themselves. Fifth Third is actually promoting its own customers to help them—and others—get jobs. The curious bank is more than just a tagline. It’s how this bank behaves.”

More about this campaign, including the job seekers’ documentary videos, are available at 53.com/reemploy.