Grey rents big brother studio for their recruits

BBC news reports that Grey London has rented the Big Brother house in Elstree to use it in December testing new creative recruits. One of the 25 applicants will be rewarded a creative role at Grey advertising.

Making it sound more like a media stunt than a serious job screening test, recruits will be called into the Diary room if Grey wants to talk to them, Ms Bennison admitted to the BBC the idea was essentially a "gimmick" designed to set Grey apart from other ad agencies in the battle to land the best graduates.

"I don't think we will be recruiting our next CEO this way." Ms Bennet said. Why not? If it's good enough for your creatives... She also said: "It helps you to discover if one of the group is not a team player or is really irritating."

Here's an idea, if you want to land the best graduates, start with paying them decent placement wages. This sounds like another London admove ensuring only the biggest pricks survive the placement years.

Meanwhile in Denmark: an agency here is planning to start an actual Big Brother agency - where the creatives are filmed 24/7 working and six months later it will be aired on TV. No word yet if they managed to sell that concept.

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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Robblink's picture

Yeah. Pretty entertaining....but only if you're a spectator. Just wait until the economy turns around and then us adgrunts can retaliate against the penny pinching agencies.

This story reminds me of the "Survivor" game the DiMassimo agency played to find an entry level Account grunt:

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/22/news/companies/dimassimo/

Dabitch's picture

hehe. showering at Crunch every morning. Handling simulated client crises, creating Buzz for a client on a 500 dollar budget. This sounds all good - and the best part:

O'Rourke's compensation, other than saying it will be between $25,000 and $30,000.

congratulation to Ms O'Rourke for choosing the AE path, where you get paid. ;)

Dabitch's picture

adcritic's Jim Hanas writes in todays elert: ON THE WEB

Grey/London has picked a unique venue for its annual round of graduate recruitment. The agency is renting out the house where the U.K. version of the reality show Big Brother is set, according to the BBC. The Orwellian house of horrors and its panopoly of cameras "helps you to discover if one of the group is not a team player or is really irritating," an agency representative explains.