Ricky Gervais brings the midas touch to viral campaign.

Ricky Gervais has once again proved to be a powerful marketing tool through the latest viral email marketing campaign for jobability.com, the UKís leading employment site for disabled jobseekers. The site witnessed an increase of nearly five hundred percent in the number of unique users within the first week of the email campaign carried out by totaljobs.com, the job site behind jobability.com. The campaign has been timed to coincide with the 2003 European Year of People with Disabilities.

The campaign aims to challenge employers' perceptions of disabled workers as well as raise jobseeker awareness of the job site through a streamed video written, starring and directed by Gervais. The advertisement, which has also been playing in cinemas, highlights one of the many problems facing disabled jobseekers - employers' misconceptions about the types of role that candidates could fill. A David Brent-like character expresses his willingness to hire ëa disabled personí, but then finds ridiculous reasons why employees with disabilities such as restricted growth, blindness or deafness could not fit into the workplace.

The email directs traffic to www.jobability.com, the not-for-profit job site where users are invited to apply for a job online, and potential recruiters are encouraged to advertise their vacancies free of charge. The number of unique users jumped from 4,330 in December to 23,439 in January. Page impressions rose from 25,751 to 78,082, whilst the number of visits leapt from 5,448 before the campaign to 27,653 post campaign.

Gervais has already proved to have the midas touch by shifting more than one million copies of his comedy series ëThe Officeí in the lead up to Christmas, making it the fastest selling non-film DVD ever. The makers of Monopoly are also vying to have Gervaisí character David Brent appear in a special Berkshire edition of the board game.

jobability.com is supported by totaljobs.com, Microsoft and Leonard Cheshire. Recruiters who use the site agree to interview any person who matches the job specification ñ regardless of disability ñ and can source the best candidates from the CVs posted.

Keith Robinson, chief operations director for totaljobs.com says: ìWe believe that disabled people are still being widely discriminated against during the recruitment process. totaljobs.com is a testament to the power of the internet as a recruitment tool, and our viral campaign amplifies this potential for jobability.com, directing jobseekers to a site where they can apply for jobs without being judged on their disability. jobability.com is all about encouraging employers to see potential, not potential problems. The advertisementís witty tone, undercut with a serious message, reflects our brand values.î