LinkedIn's 2019 'What Are You Searching For?' campaign by BMB marked the brand's first UK TV advertising, reaching over two million video views across film and
How LinkedIn Asked the United Kingdom What It Was Searching For
LinkedIn's 2019 campaign 'What Are You Searching For?' is a multi-channel film-led initiative created by BMB and published in the United Kingdom in October 2019, positioning LinkedIn as a personalised, human-centred job discovery platform through the unifying hashtag #InItTogether.
The campaign marked a significant milestone for LinkedIn in the United Kingdom: it was the brand's first UK television advertising campaign, as reported by Marketing Week. That distinction alone signals the strategic weight LinkedIn placed on the British market at this moment. Rather than leading with product features or platform statistics, the campaign opened with an introspective question directed at working professionals — one designed to prompt genuine reflection on career ambitions, identity, and what meaningful employment actually looks like in a competitive labour market.
Planned across seven weeks, according to bmbagency.com, the campaign ran across television, digital, social media, outdoor, print, and radio. Its geographic focus concentrated on four major UK cities: London, Bristol, Birmingham, and Manchester, ensuring the message reached the densest professional populations across England. The decision to deploy film as the primary medium was deliberate. The visual format allowed LinkedIn and BMB to present real members — including a firefighter and a man who had been made redundant — whose stories grounded the campaign's emotional appeal in lived experience rather than aspiration alone, as noted by clapboard.com. These individuals spoke to practical motivations: earning more, moving out of home, finding flexible work. The campaign carried a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100, reflecting solid structural execution within a category that has historically struggled to connect emotionally with audiences.
LinkedIn identified a specific emotional gap in the United Kingdom's professional services landscape before a single frame of film was shot. Research conducted by LinkedIn UK found that 40% of jobseekers lacked confidence in themselves and 44% lacked confidence in their experience, according to marketingweek.com. Those figures shaped every creative and media decision that followed.
The broader strategic rationale rested on repositioning LinkedIn away from the formal, transactional perception that had calcified around professional networking platforms in the UK market. Matt Lever, Creative Chairman at BMB, described the campaign as introducing the brand in a category he characterised as being devoid of warmth and humanity, as reported by campaignlive.co.uk. That framing identified the precise competitive gap LinkedIn was attempting to occupy. In the United Kingdom, where professional identity is often tied to a sense of reserve, an advertising campaign that asked a direct emotional question — what are you actually searching for — carried genuine disruptive potential.
The competitive context was direct. In the global online recruitment market, LinkedIn held an estimated 22% of online recruitment revenue and Indeed held approximately 18%, according to htfmarketinsights.com. Both platforms were competing for the attention and loyalty of the same UK professionals. Where Indeed leaned on volume and speed, LinkedIn's 'What Are You Searching For?' campaign made a deliberate bid for emotional resonance and community, encapsulated in the #InItTogether positioning. The 'In It Together' brand platform, of which this campaign was an explicit extension per a LinkedIn spokesperson cited by campaignlive.co.uk, signalled a long-term strategic shift from utility-first messaging toward something closer to belonging. For a platform operating in the professional services category, that shift represented a meaningful creative risk with clear commercial logic behind it.
BMB built the creative execution of 'What Are You Searching For?' around a deceptively simple mechanism. The campaign posed one question and then let real LinkedIn members answer it. That structural choice — prioritising authentic voice over polished narrative — gave the film medium its documentary texture and separated the work from the aspirational montage conventions that dominate recruitment advertising.
The BMB team behind the campaign included Chief Creative Officer Matt Lever, Creatives Harry Boothman, Business Director Jake Goodman, Account Director Matthew Bonny, Account Manager Liv Myers, and Agency Producer Alex Paterakis, as documented by bmbagency.com. Lever noted publicly that member responses to the campaign's central question were inspiring, moving, and sometimes downright amusing, as reported by marketingweek.com. That tonal range — from emotional weight to levity — was embedded into the film from the outset rather than being an incidental byproduct.
The decision to cast real LinkedIn members, rather than actors, was a production choice with strategic implications. The firefighter and the individual navigating redundancy, referenced by clapboard.com, were not archetypes constructed to represent audiences. They were the audience. In the United Kingdom, where advertising credibility is frequently evaluated through the lens of authenticity, this casting approach aligned with what UK consumers have come to expect from brands attempting to participate in genuine cultural conversations. A LinkedIn spokesperson described the campaign's intent as creating a new, warmer, more human feel with its members, as cited by campaignlive.co.uk. The film format, deployed across a seven-week window and anchored in the #InItTogether hashtag, gave that intent a coherent and repeatable visual language across all UK touchpoints.
The 'What Are You Searching For?' campaign generated more than two million video views, according to clapboard.com. For a brand launching its first UK television advertising campaign in the professional services category, that figure represented meaningful market penetration across a geographically targeted footprint spanning London, Bristol, Birmingham, and Manchester.
The impact extended beyond view counts. The campaign produced a 15% increase in positive brand associations, as reported by marketingweek.com. Equally significant was a 24% increase in the proportion of LinkedIn users who believed their next job was within reach through LinkedIn, per marketingweek.com. That second metric is particularly telling because it maps directly to the campaign's core strategic objective: shifting perception from LinkedIn as a passive professional network to LinkedIn as an active, personalised job discovery engine in the United Kingdom.
LinkedIn described the activity as its biggest UK advertising campaign at the time of launch, as reported by marketingweek.com. Within the context of that ambition, the results suggest the campaign achieved its primary brand-building goals. The structural effectiveness of the work derives from the alignment between insight — jobseeker confidence gaps identified through LinkedIn UK research — and execution, which foregrounded real members rather than manufactured stories. In the United Kingdom's professional services advertising environment, where competitors including Indeed rely heavily on functional messaging, LinkedIn's emotionally grounded approach produced measurable attitudinal shifts. The Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executed its brief with competence and genuine warmth, even if the broader creative ambition stopped short of category-defining innovation.
LinkedIn's 'What Are You Searching For?' campaign positioned the platform as a personalised job discovery tool for UK professionals. Created by BMB and launched in October 2019, it featured real LinkedIn members sharing their career motivations, anchored by the hashtag #InItTogether and distributed across television, digital, outdoor, print, and radio channels.
Yes. 'What Are You Searching For?' marked LinkedIn's first UK television advertising campaign. Launched in October 2019, it represented the brand's most significant UK media investment to date, as reported by Marketing Week, covering seven weeks across London, Bristol, Birmingham, and Manchester.
BMB created the campaign. The team included Creative Chairman Matt Lever, Creatives Harry Boothman, Business Director Jake Goodman, Account Director Matthew Bonny, Account Manager Liv Myers, and Agency Producer Alex Paterakis, as documented by bmbagency.com. The campaign ran in the United Kingdom in October 2019.
The campaign exceeded two million video views and produced a 15% increase in positive brand associations, according to marketingweek.com. It also generated a 24% increase in the share of UK LinkedIn users who believed their next job was within reach through the platform, per marketingweek.com.
LinkedIn UK research found 40% of jobseekers lacked confidence in themselves and 44% lacked confidence in their experience, per marketingweek.com. BMB used this to build a campaign that addressed emotional barriers to job searching rather than leading with platform features, giving the work a distinctly human tone in the United Kingdom.
#InItTogether anchored LinkedIn's broader UK brand positioning, framing job searching as a shared, community-supported experience rather than a solitary struggle. A LinkedIn spokesperson described the campaign as building on existing 'In It Together' brand work, as cited by campaignlive.co.uk, to create a warmer connection with members across the United Kingdom.
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