<p>I’ve noticed the IU ad before and thought to myself how strange it was given that most of the schools advertising on CC are lower-tier (according to those horrid USNWR rankings that everyone takes so seriously).</p>
<p>But really, who cares? My opinion of the school is not dampened simply because they advertise on a website full of overacheiving students. If anything, it’s a smart marketing ploy. Props to them.</p>
<p>By the way, CC doesn’t do “behavioral targeting,” i.e., tracking your behavior and delivering ads based on that. Schools do often choose which geographic areas are most likely to be successful for them, which can explain why people see different ads. Schools can also pick areas of the site that work best, e.g., a school wishing to let students know about its musical theater program might choose to run some of its ads in the Musical Theater forum.</p>
<p>It’s easy to understand why even high-prestige colleges would be on CC - not only is our reach very large, but we skew toward students with above-average qualifications. We’ve had targeted ad campaigns from some of the most selective schools in the country. At the same time, less selective schools still want to enroll highly qualified students and may offer financial or other incentives to those who matriculate.</p>
<p>In the last year and a half, we’ve been able to add many more college advertisers to our roster. This has been great for CC members, IMO, for a few reasons:</p>
<p>1) These ads keep CC a totally free resource to all our student and parent members. We’ve been able to add massive amounts of server capacity as well as roll out improvements like [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visits/]CampusVibe[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/visits/]CampusVibe[/url</a>] and less obvious but really important things like faster-loading pages.</p>
<p>2) The college ads replace ads from our default ad sources and are far more relevant to our members’ interests. We have limited control over our default ads, and some can be a bit cheesy and of minimal interest to our members. (R124687 points out some of these above.) I’d love to have all of our ads be from high quality colleges and universities.</p>
<p>3) There are a few dozen “brand name” schools that everyone knows about, or thinks they know about. For every student, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of colleges that could provide a great education, most of which aren’t big brands. Our college ads give our members a chance to explore some institutions they might not have considered, or even heard of.</p>
<p>We encourage our advertisers to use creative material that tells what is different about their school. (I really like IU’s ads that focus on their gorgeous campus and research university status, even though most CC members are likely aware of IU.) Many of our smaller school advertisers are far from national brand names, and I think it’s important that even in a banner ad they give our members an idea of what sets them apart. (Some do a better job of this than others.)</p>
<p>Interesting discussion!</p>
<p>I’m just gonna keep lurking on this thread, but I agree with Roger Dooley, “interesting discussion”</p>
<p>THANKS Rog! (Whoa y’all…big brother IS watching!) I love it! Very informative and interesting answers. </p>
<p>I agree I think HOW IU did their ad is QUITE good. It’s the first that’s drawn my eye for quite some time (don’t know if it was the fact I subconsciously recognized the logo, of if I was attracted by the ever-changing words. I agree that what they did with a small space and my short attention time was very effective. Look at this award. Look at that award. Not done yet-here’s another. </p>
<p>But it just gave me a sinking feeling when the ONLY other colleges I’ve seen are colleges that are local/community level. No one expects “top 10” to have to advertise. But I just don’t see anything even comparable. Maybe, if I was a different CC user (visited different parts of the site, etc.)…I’d see comparable state schools. ?? But I’m on IU less than Ivies, and I get only “lower tier” colleges even on those sites. </p>
<p>I’ve had to create my own advertising before, for my business, and I do a POOR job. But it still interests me, and I know feedback is crucial. </p>
<p>Just…yesterday (?) I posted on another thread how VERY good was IU’s issuance of higher quality winter neck scarves for their accepted students with the highest automatic scholarships. They won an award of some sort for that!</p>
<p>Anyway…great answer. Thanks.</p>
<p>Roger,</p>
<p>I believe you when you say that CC doesn’t do behavioral tracking, but I think some of your default advertisers may.</p>
<p>Now, it might just be a coincidence, but the other day I was looking at a Pottery Barn paint colors ad and clicked through to their website. When I went to CC, I started seeing Pottery Barn ads on the sidebar occasionally. </p>
<p>Personally, I think the IU ads here are fine. I don’t think any less of the school for using this venue to get their message across. In fact, it could be a good choice for them resource-wise.</p>
<p>I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for Eureka College here lately. Anybody else?</p>
<p>Pottery Barn! This is so fun. I haven’t seen any of these “different” things y’all are talking about (insurance, etc.). But now I’m WATCHING. </p>
<p>Just now:
New England College
Regent University -ONLINE college
and a place sellling personalized CUPS or something like that!</p>
<p>…and I’ve def seen Eureka College a lot too.</p>
<p>I did see the banner from time to time. I am sure that there are better ways to present IU in a more effective way. For example, the banner could include some more info about Professor Elinor Ostrom’s effort for winning the Nobel prize. I am not sure how much IU spent on this. Would it be more useful to hand out some more automatic scholarship?</p>
<p>I have never seen IU ad on CC before, and the IU thread is the one i read the most. However other schools that do have ad on CC are texas A&M, and Southern Methodist University (SMU). So all the ads are not from low tier schools</p>
<p>I just went over to the Cal Poly SLO forum and immediately an interactive ad came up on top about Cal Poly. I know they don’t have to advertise in the least. In fact, they’ve had more applicants than ever this year. They have to turn a lot of qualified applicants away because most of their programs are so impacted. I can’t figure out why they have a moving banner up there then.</p>
<p>After that I went to the USC forum. Same thing happened. They have an ad on top re; a Master’s in Teaching at USC and one on the side about online studies there. And, again, USC does NOT need to advertise. So, it’s obvious it’s not about a school hurting for students. We know IU isn’t desperate.</p>
<p>Interesting that Cal Poly SLO pops up when I go to UC Davis.</p>