A Company Wanted An Employee To Stay So Badly It Created A Dedicated Advertising Campaign

Imagine yourself waking up to see that your employer just put out a giant billboard urging you to stick around and not to hop to another firm. Exactly that happened to a young Lithuanian marketing talent named Pija.

She was about to leave one of the biggest shared mobility companies in Europe CityBee for Google, but then suddenly it was a much more puzzling decision to make.

“You woke up and WOW… We need to talk, CityBee”, Pija wrote on her Facebook wall that morning.

The surprise-shock came after Pija saw a post on social media by her employer. Essentially it said, “We believe there is still a chance you might change your mind and stay at CityBee. Because you know you won’t find a team this crazy anywhere else”. The message then was followed by two pictures of the billboard in Vilnius city and CityBee cars, both with the slogan “Pija, stay!”.

There were even more surprises for Pija that day. The slogan was visible on the CityBee shared mobility app to more than 300K Lithuanian users. Also, a video was posted on YouTube in which colleagues and influencers were asking Pija to stay at CityBee.

A move, probably no company in the world ever attempted before, was inspired by CityBee CEO Lukas Yla. According to him, nowadays, job-hopping is a norm, and talented professionals are driven by more than financial benefits. So it is crucial to demonstrate the capability to motivate people in unconventional ways.

“Whether Pija stays or not, we have created something she will remember forever dearly. There is a value for her and us too. It’s a win-win situation,” said L. Yla.

L. Yla is well known in Lithuania and worldwide for his out of the box marketing solutions.

A few years ago, marketing professional caught the attention of global media after he visited high-profile companies in the U.S by posing as a donut delivery guy. That was a creative way to land a job there. The catchphrase “Most resumes end up in trash. Mine—in your belly.” he used back then, soon became one of the top marketing stories online.

It seems that L. Yla brought that unique, out of the box marketing flavor to CityBee. The company is praised as an innovator in marketing and well know in its home-market Lithuania for various stunts. Like adding the ugliest car in the world to the carsharing fleet or sending donuts to IT specialists whom they wanted to invite for a job interview.