Interactive ‘gadvert’ measures true value of banner campaigns

CHICAGO, IL (June 21, 2007) – QuietAgent, the anonymous online headhunter, believes it could effect a significant change in the value proposition of online advertising campaigns, with the release of its new rich-media tool, coined the ‘gadvert’ (a ‘gadget that thinks it’s an advert’).

The QuietAgent gadvert is an online banner advertisement that upon a click turns into a mini-application or ‘gadget’, allowing people to actually join the QuietAgent service while remaining on the website of an advertising provider or partner.

‘Gadgets’ or ‘widgets’ are growing in popularity for functions such as real-time viewing of stocks, news and weather reports, and for incorporating simple tools within websites. Up until now, most advertising gadgets have been tools that merely host summarized information from another source (for instance, lists of cities or airports) and link users out to other websites for more information.

QuietAgent is the first true application gadget, allowing users to actually interact with its job seeker website in real-time. They can search the database for a job they would consider doing, enter their desired salary, relevant work history and education details, and request QuietAgent keeps an eye out for any job that meets their minimum criteria.

Jason Kerr, CEO of QuietAgent explains that the gadvert came about because the company needed a quick and non-intrusive way to engage the busy professionals QuietAgent was designed for. “We target the 90 percent of working people who don’t use job boards and aren’t interested in time-consuming signup processes, so we needed to offer a simple registration experience - one that didn’t divert people away from what they were doing for very long.”

The gadvert can be hosted on any website and looks like any other rich-media advertisement. Users click on the gadvert to display the application, which guides them through completing an anonymous registration in a matter of seconds.

Kerr believes that the gadvert concept has the potential to deliver two-fold benefits to website owners. Firstly, the technology gives them the advantage of running traditional advertising while retaining visitors on their websites. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, gadverts provide an easy way for them to monetize their website audience with a gadvert partner, without losing visitor traffic.

QuietAgent partner websites include the Forbes Career Center, alumni social networking organization Harris Connect, and a growing number of employer association websites globally. An education campaign to job seekers begins this month via advertising channels such as ABCnews, MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal.

With the gadvert in place, QuietAgent is now focused on reaching its critical mass of 4 million job seekers by the end of 2007.