All of us have felt that nagging feeling that it might be time to make a move. Young professionals are now more open to exploring new career opportunities than ever before.
LinkedIn’s latest marketing campaign, Got Itchy Feet? plays on this concept, using the literal translation of the phrase in order to provide a humorous yet insightful look at career issues.
The campaign, developed by VCCP, features three episodic films in which workers’ inner monologues–personified by their own sock-clad feet–voice their career doubts. This is a fun and humorous approach to highlight LinkedIn’s Job Collections, which are designed to help make the job search process more personalized and intuitive.
It was a simple idea: everyone has internal conversations about their career, why not make them engaging and relatable.
“We all have doubts about whether we’re in the right job. The inner monologue we have with ourselves is fertile ground for turning into a fun script,” says VCCP creative Robbie Field. “When we read the insights about Gen Z always being on the lookout for something new, that’s when we struck on Itchy Feet—and how it could be a great device to deliver some motivation to look further afield.”
Got Itchy Feet is not just another campaign offering career advice. It strikes the right balance between humor and usefulness to ensure it is well received by its target audience. “LinkedIn has a simple, helpful tool in job collections. All we had to do was tee people up to learn about it in a fun way,” Henry Westcott, VCCP’s creative director, explains. “We wanted people to see a bit of themselves in these ads and their own job journey reflected back at them.”
This campaign focuses on three important priorities of Gen Z: career development, flexibility and social impact. The insights were not just thrown together, but rather a result of real research which influenced the direction the campaign took.
“They were true insights from research – tangible things that Gen Zers actually want,” Westcott, says “Then the scripts flowed from there. We made a point of working with the cast to adapt the scripts too, so nothing felt forced, and no dialogue felt out of place.”
This is a wise move considering that LinkedIn’s Work Change Report revealed young professionals are likely to have twice as many careers compared with those who entered the workforce fifteen years ago. It’s more important for this generation to have the right job that matches their aspirations and values than just having a regular job.
This campaign does indeed use real feet. This campaign uses no CGI, only real feet and a lot of skillful movement.
“On our first chat with Jen (the director), she showed us a video she had made of her own foot filmed upside down. It made us laugh and worked well, so we knew that was the way to do it,” Field, says
The rehearsals were crucial in bringing to life the characters of the feet. “We held rehearsals to unlock the relationship between the foot cast and its counterpart,” He adds. “By using real feet, each foot became a talented actor in its own right. They had the difficult job of carefully and precisely moving to match the dialogue spoken in real-time.”
The campaign is given a tangible, raw quality in an age of digital media where the use of special effects has become overdone. This approach ensures that the humor is delivered perfectly, and makes the conversation between the people and their feet more entertaining and unexpected.
LinkedIn will extend the campaign beyond the films by partnering with the five Top Voices of the LinkedIn platform, Elfried Samba (ElfriedSamba.com), Charlotte Mair (Charlotte Mair.com), Oliver Yonchev (OliverYonchev.com), NdubuisiUchea.com, and Molly Johnson Jones. The influencers will each share their unique “itchy feet” Moments that encourage audiences to reflect upon their own careers.
LinkedIn has launched a contest whereby users can submit their original content. “itchy feet” Win a pair LinkedIn socks by sharing your career highlights. How better to celebrate the theme than with socks branded by LinkedIn?
On the job market of today, young professionals constantly weigh their options. Got Itchy Feet is a timely campaign. It feels like an effective and timely campaign. The campaign taps into the universal anxiety about career, presents it in a humorous and fresh way and, most importantly, offers a solution to this in the form LinkedIn’s Job Collections.
Matt Lloyd, creative director of VCCP says it like this: “We needed something that would immediately grab attention. The idea of a colourful-socked foot being the owner’s inner monologue felt like a fresh, surprising take—one that was both funny and informative.”
SocialChain has managed additional social and influencer activations, including the launch of the campaign on LinkedIn, Meta and YouTube.
