Online recruiters kick off Super Bowl ads

Amazon.com may be the biggest brand on the Internet, but online
job sites are spending big money this Super Bowl weekend to attract a consumer
who most likely hasn't ever searched for a job online: Joe Six-Pack.

The advertisements that air during the Super Bowl are as eagerly anticipated as
the game itself. Last year, about 130 million people watched the game, many
with an intense interest in the ads, which companies use to launch brands and
kick off new campaigns.

This year, Internet recruiting sites are banking on Super Bowl ads to rocket
them out of obscurity. HotJobs.com, an 80-employee startup, is plunking down $2
million, almost half of its 1998 revenues, on a single, 30-second ad to air in
the third quarter of the game. Monster.com, launched earlier this month after the merger of The Monster Board and Online Career Center, will broadcast its ad
during the Fox Network's pre-game show and during the second and fourth
quarters.

For companies like IBM and Anheuser-Busch, which is paying $20 million for 10
commercial spots during the game, the Super Bowl is important but represents a
mere drop in the bucket of its total advertising budget. But on the Internet,
creating a successful brand name is "like the lottery," said Richard Johnson,
CEO of HotJobs.com. "We wanted to buy the biggest lottery ticket we could."

Less well-heeled online recruiters such as HeadHunter.Net are capitalizing on
the attention HotJobs' Super Bowl ad buy has brought to the category.
HeadHunter.Net will step up its marketing efforts on the Internet this weekend
to kick off a two-week "blitz." The company will run ads on Yahoo, Lycos,
GeoCities, America Online, Excite and Alta Vista, so that when the HotJobs and
Monster.com ads drive people online, the first thing they'll see is a
HeadHunter.Net banner.

The Super Bowl is also a chance to reach out to a broader audience of job
seekers. Most jobs listed online seek professionals, particularly in the
technology and finance industries. But that market is becoming saturated,
according to Linda Marquis, a spokeswoman for HeadHunter.Net.

"The next wave of users is discovering the Internet at home or at school,"
Marquis said. "That's the market that the Super Bowl advertisements are
educating."

According to Forrester Research, employment is one of the fastest-growing
categories among online classified ads, projected to growth from $105 million
in 1998 to $1.7 billion in 2003.