UNA E-COMMERCE STUDENTS PARTICIPATE IN GLOBAL ADWORDS MARKETING COMPETITION
Feb. 12, 2008
By Michele King
UNA Student Writer
FLORENCE, Ala. —Dr. John Crabtree and his e-commerce class are taking on more than 20,000 students from 61 countries this spring in Google’s Online Marketing Challenge.
Crabtree, an associate professor of computer information systems, has put together seven teams of students that will be given $200 of online advertising with Google’s AdWords to help local businesses devise an online marketing strategy.
AdWords is the Google advertising program that enables businesses to create ads and choose keywords, which, if typed into the search engine, may place the ad at the top of the search results.
“This is a brand new competition. There are so many variables; it’s hard to tell how any of the competitors will do,” Crabtree said.
Google will judge the competition based upon three criteria: execution, a pre-campaign strategy paper and a post-campaign report stating what students learned.
UNA’s competing students are using small, local businesses that have less than 100 employees. Participating businesses are required to have a Web site but cannot already be involved with Google AdWords.
The confirmed businesses include: Unique Car Care and Limousine Service LLC; PartyPaperDirect.com; Security Self Storage Inc.; Addiction Clothing Boutique, Printers and Stationers Inc.; Story and Lee Furniture; and George’s Steak Pit.
Each student team will have three weeks to create an effective campaign that will promote traffic on their business’s Web site.
The prize for the winning team and their professor is a trip to the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., to meet with the developers of AdWords. Regional winners will receive a trip to their local Google offices.
Winners will be announced in July.
