Glassdoor Satirizes Bad Workplaces to Help People Find a Job That Loves Them Back

Oct. 25, 2022

On the heels of last year’s successful brand campaign for Glassdoor, creative production company Where The Buffalo Roam (WTBR) produced a series of spots showcasing why the platform is still the worldwide leader on insights about jobs and companies. Conceived in collaboration with Glassdoor’s in-house creative agency, and directed under the comedic sensibilities of Brian L. Perkins, the campaign humorously plays into the Glassdoor namesake — and the Superman-like powers it offers job hunters to see companies for who they really are from the inside – from leadership teams to work environments to pay and benefits. 

Behind the tagline "Find a Job that Loves You Back," the campaign also brings into focus Glassdoor’s public commitment to fostering more equitable workplaces, highlighting a wide range of features geared at greater transparency into the current state of diversity, equity, and inclusion within companies. 

“Window Shopping” (:30) shows a woman browsing Glassdoor profiles of companies along her morning walk to work. One by one, the reviews transform into satirical vignettes of the workplaces she passes by: an antiquated country club-looking den full of cigar-smoking execs joking about giving themselves another raise; an absurdly-crammed office cubicle that makes Mike Judge’s Office Space look like paradise; and a drab office where a woman opens her paycheck to find nothing but peanuts, literally. The spot concludes within the walls of a vibrant, diverse, and modern office full of employees who are smitten about their work-life balance.

Amanda Runner, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Glassdoor remarked:

"I love the lighthearted way this campaign delivers a direct and powerful message about how indispensible Glassdoor is to people ready to make a change in their career Actual transparency about what it's like on the other side comes from those who know a company best — the employees — and using the Glassdoor app gives job seekers a superpower like no other."

 

WTBR produced two alternate versions of the :30 hero spot, as well as five :15 spots geared at highlighting Glassdoor’s customizable review and ratings features, including salaries, DEI filtering of company reviews, and the new community conversation features.

Perkins developed the scripts around two brand pillars outlined in Glassdoor’s creative brief — transparency and community, remarking that the X-ray window shopping concept was the perfect visual device to express these values. 

Perkins explained:

"The concept really showcases what the product does so well – bringing you inside companies to get a real, honest look at what they’re like, which is a huge deal when you are considering a new job. The ideas Glassdoor brought to the table were already really strong, and we had a blast fleshing them out. Satirizing all of the suboptimal work experiences we’ve all had was very cathartic. And it was a great way to demonstrate how great it is that Glassdoor helps you find a career that's the right fit for you much faster."

 

Staging the four distinct vignettes, Perkins and his crew also leaned heavily into art direction, lighting, and casting to sell the gag. Warm, mid-century set and costume designs à la Hudsucker Proxy embody the first undesirable workplace. For another, they constructed a cramped, Gilliam-esque cubicle hell with custom-built ⅓ size desks, sickly green fluorescent lighting, and a spontaneously-combusting fax machine. The happy workplace is presented in sharp contrast – a brightly lit creative space with diverse, stylishly dressed employees who actually like their job and are having fun. 

The WTBR design and animation team created 3D pop-out elements to correspond with Glassdoor profiles of each company the woman walks by. These title cards, inspired by the Glassdoor UI, are immersed into the live-action street environment and serve as a portal into the profiles she taps on. 

Transitioning between the street action to the vignettes required some subtle VFX trickery, which Perkins says is not so apparent to the naked eye. With the objective to make each zoom moment feel fluid and dynamic, VFX Supervisor Simon Mowbray and Jon Corriveau photographed the downtown Chicago shoot location and rebuilt the environment entirely in 3D, giving them full control of the camera moves with three axises instead of one. 

Perkins concluded:

"Without Simon and Jonathan’s amazing VFX work, I would have needed massive zoom lenses to fly to the window of each building as close as we needed. The zooms happen quickly – they had to be precise – so rebuilding that block in CG was paramount to selling the gag of these spots."