A Rancho Bernardo, CA teacher has been selling ads on tests and quizzes to compensate for lost school funding. If the district permits this to continue it will create an interesting business opportunity. It’s not everyday that a new ad space opens up, and here is one that has a guaranteed audience in a good target demographic.
The secret to the success of this plan will be to incorporate the advertising placement into the common test creation software currently in use. The process will need to be practically effortless for the teachers.
Elements:
1) Teacher registration
Teachers should be able to register via a dialog in their test creation software, or alternatively via a web form. The registration should allow for teacher, school and district limitations on advertising.
2) Ad purchasing
Advertisers could set up campaigns focused on age ranges, socio-economic factors, subject matter and a variety of other factors to allow the automatic placement of their ads on qualifying tests.
3) Ad placement
Test creation software could be enhanced with the capability to insert an ad before the final printing and report on the number of tests taken. For teachers creating tests by hand, they could use a web form to obtain a correctly sized ad or could download a template for a Word or OpenOffice document that would load an permit an ad to be loaded before the final printing.
4) Campaign feedback
Standard mechanisms such as coupons or vanity URLs could be used to track campaign effectiveness.
It may be possible to write off some portion of the advertising cost as a donation. It may even be possible to leverage students to sell ads to local businesses both as a benefit to their school and for a cut of the advertising revenue. It would be valuable business experience in the vein of Junior Achievement programs permitting students to understand how to sell ads, create campaigns and measure their success.
Tags: advertising, education