DHL's Esport engagement has developed quite a bit over the years. So I'm asking Simon Bühler, Global Employer Branding Lead: How did you get there? And how can other employers use Esport as well?
Julian: Simon, what makes gaming and esports so interesting?
Simon: Gaming is an incredibly large industry, even larger than the cinema and TV industries combined. And it's predicted to continue growing immensely.
Just like with amateur soccer, where everyone enjoys kicking a ball around, there are professional leagues where professional players compete against each other.
They have fan clubs, enthusiastic fans who cheer for their idols and consume everything related to them. Over the years, prize money has skyrocketed, leading to the development of professional sports.
Julian: How did DHL get involved in this?
Simon: Our sponsorship originated more than six years ago as a brand marketing activity for DHL.
What I believe makes the success of this sponsorship is that we're not just providing a logo presence. We've also developed content.
It starts with the story of how we deliver the ESL trophies that are up for grabs. Then there's the DHL MVP, the Most Valuable Player Award. And then there are the DHL ProTips, where pro gamers provide tips and tricks to improve your game.
We have Counter-Strike, Dota, and various mobile games. And within the Dota realm, we've been working with a content creator for five years now: Action Slacks. He creates humorous content to accompany the games.
Julian: How did you incorporate Employer Branding into this?
Simon: Two or three years ago, I approached the brand marketing team for the first time and suggested incorporating a secondary purpose into this sponsorship.
We started relatively small, producing a few games, just to see if this Employer Branding angle fit in. It worked quite well.
Then we scaled it up and conducted the first properly planned campaign for personnel marketing and employer branding with Action Slacks.
Julian: Why does this work for you?
Simon: The most important factor is that we didn't just randomly choose an influencer. He embodies the character of the DHL-Man, doing funny, absurd, completely off-the-wall things.
It doesn't come across as negative when he says, "Hey, I checked it out, and DHL is actually a pretty cool employer."
And that's also my advice to others trying this: Don't disrupt the customer journey. For example, if you have a contest from the brand marketing side, I would never try to insert my employer branding message. Because you risk the objectives of marketing and employer branding colliding.
After completing the brand marketing activity, there is still enough time to integrate an employer branding message.
Julian: But you still need to be visible somehow.
Simon: I would "hide" the message about our cool jobs on a campaign website. That attracts some people.
But what has worked even better is this: People who sign up for the contest receive a confirmation email, and that's where we package our employer branding message, because at that point, the consumer has already gone through the marketing process.
Julian: What's the call to action then?
Simon: You can only pack so much into an email. But we linked to a landing page showing Action Slacks, our influencer.
I sat down with him, explained our employer brand and our reasons to believe. And since he's known us for a while, he could represent that well from his perspective.
And then we built our links to the careers page, where we then directed people to the jobs.
Julian: Back to the topic of target audience. What kind of people are you reaching, and what kind of positions are we talking about? Or is it about DHL as an employer in general?
Simon: I often hear, "Oh, those are just nerds, it's all IT people." But that's a stereotype that isn't true:
I simply analyzed the Dota campaign from 2023. 40% of the people who came to our campaign page were interested in frontline jobs, then another 30% were interested in student and graduate jobs, and then the remaining 30% were interested in IT jobs.
Julian: It's a bit like football spectators, who aren't demographically the same as football players. What kind of campaigns do you run?
Simon: We initially developed an IT campaign as well. Now we've shifted more towards frontline. Both groups are completely disjointed from each other. We reach them with similar but not the same messages.
In 2022, we developed our strategy in close collaboration with the corporate brand and the consumer brand, so that they don't clash.
One of our brand claims is "Excellence Simply Delivered," and our employer branding campaign platform is "Your Future Delivered." We're trying to make a positive change in the world. The claim is broad enough that we can interpret it differently for different target groups.
Julian: How do you go from global sponsorship to actual effects on local recruitment?
Simon: I see three effects. The first is the brand spillover effect. It's organic, uncontrolled.
For example, in 2022, we had an IT recruitment campaign in Germany, and we found that during that time, the number of applicants increased in Malaysia. We didn't have any other campaigns. We analyzed this with data scientists, and it was simply spillover.
The second component is content-based campaigns, targeted ads on Action Slacks with combinations like "Apply now" or Counter-Strike "Join the Movement," to use the background noise specifically for certain target groups.
And the third are the events held in Germany, the USA, or China, where we place on-the-ground recruiters.
Julian: Can you talk about analytics? How do you measure the impact?
Simon: Of course, we use UTM tracking to see how many people click on what, what they look at, how long they stay with us? Then we track that in our applicant tracking systems.
But what I find even more important, alongside the applications that come out of it, is: How does our brand perception change? This brand preference is incredibly slow and costly.
So, for me, what's more important is that the bottom-up approach works. That's why I introduced a measurement tool called implicit association tracking.
This is based on the work of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahnemann, the recently deceased psychologist from behavioral science. We conduct a reaction time test. I interpret the difference between pre- and post-exposure to our site as a positive value contribution to our employer brand.
Julian: DHL is a big company. Is this something relevant for smaller employers who can't afford their own influencer?
Simon: It is. And that brings me back to the beginning of our conversation, the value contribution: As a small company, you just have to think about what positive contribution you can make to the community. What's the angle that's relevant to what you do in the gaming context?
And then maybe you find a small, perhaps still relatively unknown influencer. Or you could even establish some kind of award.
And then you've found your ticket. Consistently pursue that. I think it should be more long-term.
Julian: Simon, one can tell you've put a lot of thought into this. There's much more to it than meets the eye from the outside, which is why I'm grateful you took the time to give us these insights. Thank you very much!