This year marks the fourth annual
Google Online Marketing Challenge, a global university competition that affords students hands-on experience in online marketing. Each team of students partners with a small to medium size business or NGO and receives $200 to run a three week Google AdWords campaign. Ultimately, they submit their account and a campaign strategy report to an international judging panel of professors.
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This year marks the fourth annual
Google Online Marketing Challenge, a global university competition that affords students hands-on experience in online marketing. Each team of students partners with a small to medium size business or NGO and receives $200 to run a three week Google AdWords campaign. Ultimately, they submit their account and a campaign strategy report to an international judging panel of professors.
Over the past four years, Challenge participation has soared. This year, 4,429 teams from 68 countries participated, representing an increase of 46 percent from last year and making the Challenge one of the world’s largest university competitions. Earlier this year, the Challenge was recognized for its educational impact by the American Marketing Association, which recognized the program with their Innovative Excellence in Marketing Education award.
We’re proud to announce that the team from The University of Houston garnered the global award. Team members Erin Blatzer, Lauren Davis, Carolina Thomas, and Jeffrei Clifton, taught by Professor Steven Koch, shared the following thoughts on their campaign strategy for the
Houston Symphony.
For us, creating the right team -- including the right client -- was essential. The Houston Symphony gave us inside access to their marketing team and ongoing strategy, which formed the basis for our campaign's complementary strategy. The Symphony uses single ticket sales as an entry point for creating long term subscribers and donors...With 875% ROI, we knew we had delivered a strong campaign, and were delighted to share the insights generated with the Symphony team so that they could continue building revenue and community relationships online. To win the global competition on top of that is an extraordinary honor and we couldn't be more thrilled.
In recognition of their success, the team and their professor are off to Mountain View, Calif. for a special tour of the Googleplex. To help in their ongoing studies, each team member will also receive an Apple MacBook Pro.
We also extend congratulations to the four regional winners. For the Americas, the winner comes from James Madison University in the U.S., while a team from the Warsaw School of Economics won for Europe. The Asia/Pacific winner comes from Edith Cowan University in Australia and for the Middle East/Africa, the winning team comes from Bethlehem University in the West Bank. Here are
more details about our winners.
This year’s Challenge participants also competed for the NGO Impact Award, which recognizes online marketing campaigns that made an outstanding difference for an NGO. A panel of independent nonprofit leaders selected the winners based on short essays detailing the impact achieved by the nonprofit due to the AdWords campaign. The winning NGO partners will be awarded donations: $15,000 for first place, $10,000 for second place, and $5,000 for third place.
We are thrilled to announce that a team from Vienna University of Economics and Business won first place for their promotion of
Trash Design, while a team from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore took second place for their work with
Instituto Oikos. The overall global winners from the University of Houston received third place for their impact on the
Houston Symphony.
For anyone interested in competing in the 2012 Challenge, formal registrations will open later this year and in the meantime, you can
preregister.
Posted by Jessica Schwartz, Google AdWords Team
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