Just like the college football season with the attention of thousands of viewers, the NCAA tournament has proved to be entertaining, surprising, and exciting. This month-long event known as "March Madness" determines which college basketball team is the best in the nation. What's the best part of March Madness for the media world? All of the advertising opportunities! Now, I'm not just talking about for marketers, products, businesses and such....I'm talking about for the schools themselves.
Last year George Mason University did a great job of suprising everyone by beating some of the best teams in the tournament including UNC, Michigan State, and more. So how did this help them out? The applications for the following school year quadrupled. Also alumni stepped up and started donating huge amounts of money with pride. GMU was shocked, seeing as they had little to no advertising for the school.
According to Rich Thomaselli's article, small schools can gain up to $50 million dollars in free advertising for doing well in the tournament. Not too bad, eh? I had never really thought about how admissions were affected by doing well in sports. It makes sense though; they are out in the public eye with top performances, of course more students would want to come to their school. Not only do sponsors get the benefit of great advertising spots, but the schools get free publicity. It was fun to read about the success of small schools in the NCAA.
Check out Rich Thomaselli's article at: http://adage.com/article?article_id=115715
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1 comment:
10 points for this week and 5 for the previous week - there are only 3 real posts. The promotion post doesn't count, as we said in class. The sl one does.
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