Monster UK wants to topple The Guardian to become the undisputed number one in recruitment advertising by 2008, its new UK and Ireland chief executive Rob Brouwer told Recruiter in an exclusive interview.

Brouwer, who took over the role in September, said: “When I took over, I sat down with my management team and discussed what we wanted to achieve. We said we wanted to be the undisputed number one in online recruitment. We’ve achieved that. Now we want to shred the newspapers: they are our biggest competitors.”

According to Brouwer, $2.2bn (£1.18bn) is spent on recruitment advertising in the UK, but only 7% is spent online.
He said Monster will aim to grow its revenue by between 50% and 70% a year, and that it has eight strategies to achieve its ultimate goal. Brouwer declined to give specific details, and would only say e-commerce featured in the plans. He added the plans would involve making it easier for customers to buy advertisements online.

Brouwer said customer relations and continued strong new business growth would also  be crucial in its plans, as would marketing.
“The brand is so important,” he said. “We’ve doubled our spending on marketing this year. We need to achieve 80% brand awareness in the UK; we’re at 72%.”
Some growth might come from acquisitions, he added.

Monster Worldwide, the parent company of Monster UK, revealed last week it has sold its remaining TMP Worldwide ad and communications business in Europe.