You have a clear offer, good content and an audience you want to reach. Candidates still scroll past. You may need to tie your message more closely to what is going on in their lives.
A contextual campaign adapts your Employer Branding and recruitment campaigns to a season, an event or a moment in time. That might be a career change after New Year, a first summer job, or wanting a different everyday life when the holidays are over.
Here's how you can use contextual campaigns to strengthen your employer brand and support your hiring throughout the year.
What is a contextual campaign?
A contextual campaign links your message to a situation your audience recognises. You start from what matters to candidates right now and show how your offer as an employer fits in.
For example:
- New Year and January: Show the development opportunities you offer when candidates are thinking about a fresh start or their next career move.
- Summer jobs and graduate programmes: Let former summer workers or graduates talk about their time with you ahead of the next application period.
- Career fairs: Reach students before they visit your stand, and follow up with the ones you met so they remember you when it's time to apply.
- International Women's Day and Pride: Share concrete initiatives and experiences from your work towards a more equal workplace.
- Summer holidays: When everyday routines pause, many people get some distance from their job and start asking whether they want to carry on as before. That makes summer a time when people are more open to change.
- December: Use an advent calendar to showcase employees and different teams.
Start with what you can actually show. If you talk about development, let an employee tell the story of their path with you. If you talk about team spirit, show what it looks like on a normal working day.
You'll find more terms explained in our glossary for employer branding and recruitment marketing.
Why does context matter?
A candidate looking for their first job has different questions from someone ready for the next step after years in the same role. When you adapt your content to their situation, it becomes easier for them to see the value in what you offer.
For someone applying for a summer job, onboarding, working hours and experience requirements can be the deciding factors. For an experienced specialist, development opportunities and decision-making power may matter more.
So think about more than the day the campaign starts. Choose a message that fits the candidate's situation and give them a clear next step.
Combine contextual campaigns with always-on
Always-on Employer Branding advertising builds awareness of you as an employer through a steady presence. It gives your audience more chances to discover who you are, what you offer and what it's like to work with you – contextual campaigns add to that presence. At selected moments, you put extra focus on one message, one audience or one hiring need.
Ahead of summer recruitment, for example, you can step up advertising aimed at students. Around New Year, you can highlight internal career paths for people thinking about changing jobs.
This is part of how we work with Employer Marketing, where we connect long-term employer brand work with efforts to attract candidates to open roles.
Plan your campaigns in an annual calendar
Many of these moments can be planned in advance. A shared annual calendar makes it easier to line up hiring needs, content and advertising.
Choose the moments that suit your audiences and your organisation. If you have large hiring needs before summer, your priorities will differ from an organisation that recruits specialists all year round.
New Year: show candidates what their next step could be
A new year gives you a chance to talk about development and future opportunities. With a concept like New Year, New Career, you can show what the next step with you could mean.
Make the offer concrete. Feature a colleague who has moved into a new role internally, show how you invest in skills development, or explain what responsibility a new employee gets.
You can also start the conversation in December. An advent calendar with employee stories gives candidates a look inside your workplace before the January campaign. Plan the content together so your audience sees one consistent picture of you.
Summer jobs: let last year's summer workers attract the next
If you hire summer workers every year, prepare content for the next campaign well before advertising starts. Interview former summer workers while their experience is still fresh, and collect answers to candidates' most common questions:
- What tasks will I have?
- Do I need previous experience?
- What are the working hours and how long is the employment period?
- What onboarding will I get?
Make it easy to apply on mobile, too. Review what information you need in the first step and how much time the application takes.
Read more about where your candidates are on social media and how to attract Gen Z.
Career fairs: be visible before, during and after
A career fair is a clear context in itself. Students and job seekers have set aside time to meet employers, and they're already thinking about their next step. In Sweden, many of the largest fairs are run by students at the universities, such as Uniaden in Umeå, THS Armada at KTH, LARM in Linköping, CHARM at Chalmers and ARKAD in Lund. They return every autumn or spring, which makes them easy to plan for.
Your campaign can make sure candidates know who you are before they reach your stand, and remember you after they leave.
- Before the fair: Run ads aimed at students at the university or in the city where the fair takes place. Tell them you're coming, which roles or programmes you'll talk about and what they can ask you. Give them a reason to look for your stand.
- During the fair: Use location-based targeting around the venue on the day. A short message such as "Find us at stand 24" or "Meet our graduates today" works better than a general employer ad.
- After the fair: Follow up with the people who visited your stand or engaged with your ads. Share employee stories, details about open roles and a clear link to apply. Many candidates meet a lot of employers in one day, and the follow-up helps them remember you.
Plan the content with the people who will staff your stand. If your recent graduates or summer workers are there, let them appear in the ads too. Candidates then meet the same faces online and at the fair.
Adapt the message to time and place
Contextual campaigns can also be based on where candidates are or when they see the ad. An employer with workplaces close to residential areas could, for example, highlight the chance to work closer to home. In a morning campaign, the same offer could read: "More time for breakfast. Less time getting to work."
Make sure the offer is true for the roles you're advertising. Then choose channels and ad formats that let you control when and where the ads are shown.
You can often start from the same core material and adapt the headline, image and call to action for each context.
How to get started
- Start with your hiring needs: Mark when you need to reach different audiences and when new employees should start.
- Choose a few relevant moments: Prioritise the periods where you have a clear offer and content to back it up.
- Decide what the candidate should understand and do: Should they discover you as an employer, read about a role or apply?
- Prepare content and the application flow: Gather employee stories, produce the ads and check that the next step works.
- Measure against the campaign's goal: Track awareness, visits or relevant applications, for example. Take budget, audience and season into account when you compare results.
Frequently asked questions about contextual campaigns
What is a contextual campaign in employer branding?
It's a campaign where you adapt your employer message to a current context, such as New Year, an application period or a local event. The aim is to make your offer relevant to your audience in that situation.
When should we start advertising summer jobs?
In Sweden, most summer jobs are posted in February and March. Start from your start dates and previous recruitment data, then count backwards to leave time for advertising, selection and offers.
Can contextual campaigns replace always-on?
No. They do different jobs. Always-on builds awareness over time, while contextual campaigns focus your communication on selected moments and hiring needs. Plan them together so candidates recognise you all year round.
Plan your next campaign with weselect
We help you choose the right moments, develop content and plan your advertising based on your audiences and hiring needs. Book a meeting with us and we'll plan together how you can reach the right candidates at the next relevant moment.
