Örebro, a Swedish countryside town, wanted to recruit the country’s top notch IT professionals. But asking them to trade in city life wasn’t easy. Since IT stars ego-google themselves, we identified Sweden’s top 1000 and targeted them in search. A unique ad sent them to “Get a Life,” a site that presented the advantages of Örebro. The list’s exclusivity inspired up-and-comers to wonder why they weren’t included, sending them to the same site.

The campaign resulted in a flood of applications. These efforts help put Örebro on the map as the Swedish Silicon Valley for IT professionals.

We needed a disruptive solution.

Based on the insight that IT rock stars regularly ‘ego-google’ themselves for self-affirming boosts, we created the ‘Get a Life’ campaign to target each of the top 1000 names in the industry with individual ads in search selling the idea of moving to Örebro.

The ads drove these stars to a site where they could see the advantages of living in Örebro.

Beyond established IT stars, we also wanted to attract up and coming talent. The list’s exclusivity made them question why they weren’t on it and their curiosity led them to the website.

The campaign resulted in a flood of applications. Our website counted 31,316 impressions and 5,400 unique visitors. The ‘Get a Life’ campaign eventually reached national attention with reports on TV news, impacting more than 1,580,000 people.

These efforts put the small city of Örebro on the map as the Swedish Silicon Valley for IT professionals.