Social-Bee has dubbed its new advertising campaign 'Spot the Refugee.' The temporary employment agency's posters depict Albert Einstein, Freddie Mercury, and Marlene Dietrich—using these three refugees, Social-Bee aims to demonstrate how unfounded prejudices about refugees are. The Munich-based social enterprise already attracted attention in 2018 with a provocative advertising campaign.
With a Germany-wide poster campaign, advertisements and social media campaigns Social-Bee wants to address the following problem: Many employers are still hesitant to hire refugees.
"Prejudice is everywhere. We have to change that."
This is the goal of the 'Spot the Refugee' campaign.
With these three campaign motifs, the Munich-based integration service provider aims to bring about a rethink in the labor market. Today, those who think of Albert Einstein, Freddie Mercury, or Marlene Dietrich don't question their abilities or achievements. At the same time, many people have forgotten that Einstein and Dietrich fled the Nazis, while Mercury's family escaped the Zanzibar revolution by fleeing to England.
Zarah Bruhn, founder of Social-Bee, the protagonists of the current campaign:
“The idea impressively shows that a refugee background has no impact on talent.”
Co-founder explains Maximilian Felsner the objectives of the project:
“We want to raise awareness that anyone can become a refugee and show that you cannot judge people by their history.”
Spot the Refugee is the second campaign of the social enterprise
The campaign is the second of its kind. The first advertising campaign, also created pro bono by the well-known advertising agency Jung van Matt and supported by Ströer, made quite a splash. Four refugees told their personal escape stories, accompanied by the provocative statement: “Flight experiences create soft skills”.
The goal, however, was to raise awareness of refugees as employees and encourage companies to consider hiring refugees. Initially ignored by companies and the media, the ball started rolling after the campaign's first social media post. In addition to countless hate comments, Social-Bee received a lot of positive feedback.
"Even the UN Refugee Agency shared our post. And we received several inquiries from interested companies who joined us in hiring refugees."
says Sarah Schilberg, Marketing Manager at Social-Bee. And Social-Bee isn't intimidated by right-wing hate speech.
Positive response and over 85% growth
In addition to inquiries from over 40 companies, many refugees also applied for jobs. The social enterprise grew by 85% and hired more employees.
Social-Bee, a temporary employment agency, solves the problem companies face—that they are unable to hire refugees due to the high bureaucratic burden, despite a labor shortage. As an intermediary employer, the startup hires refugees for one to one and a half years and then, ideally, places them with partner companies. Medium-sized companies such as Würth, Vollcorner, and Krones are already working with Social-Bee.
More than 180 refugees were placed
The social bee has now placed over 180 refugees, including the four candidates from the first campaign. The founder's favorite example, however, is Talal. Her first employee—originally placed with a delivery service—is now back in his old job as an architect, as Zarah Bruhn explains. in an interview with the newspaper 'Die Welt'.
With the new campaign, Social-Bee aims to raise awareness that migration has no impact on talent and should therefore not negatively impact access to the labor market. The high integration rate of 80% among the placed employees proves the social enterprise right.
