It is perhaps the
world's largest in-class competition, with over 8,000 students in the 2008
Google Online Marketing Challenge and over 10,000 students from 57 countries in
the 2009 version. The Challenge gives graduate and undergraduate students
hands-on experience in the fastest growing advertising medium. Keyword
advertising is the critical revenue stream for major search engines such as
Google and Yahoo,
, and a major business model for the
foreseeable future. Google earned almost $22 billion in 2008, and over 95% of
this revenue came from their keyword advertising form, AdWords.
Usually in the right-hand column of Google
search results, traditional AdWords have four lines of copy and no images. The
headline contains a maximum of 25 characters, and the next three lines each
contain a maximum of 35 characters. Table 1 shows two sample AdWords ads for
the American Marketing Association, with identical copy except for the third
line, which should appeal to scholars (left) or those seeking employment
(right).
The Challenge, a fun and exciting
competition, helps students learn experientially, working in groups with real
clients and spending real money. Google positions the Challenge as an academic
exercise with problem-based learning, facilitated by Google rather than a
Google promotion facilitated by academics. For example, students must submit
two written reports in order to compete.
The Challenge benefits universities,
businesses, students and academics, but targets academics. To that end, a panel
of 15 academics in nine countries helps develop materials for students,
instructors, and businesses, and ultimately choose regional and global winners.
The Challenge website hosts student and instructor materials, as well as fun
videos, Frequently Asked Questions and AdWords resources. Pedagogy, particularly
experiential learning and problem-based learning, play a key role in the
learning objectives.
To spur student and academic interest,
Google sponsors three regional prizes and an overall prize. The 2009 regional
winning student teams, and their professors, won an overnight trip to the
Google headquarters in China ,
Ireland and the USA San Francisco
Challenge
Implementation
The Challenge follows the steps in Figure
1. After the instructor divides students into groups of 3 to 6 members, the
groups recruit a client business. Based on their research of the business, its market
and competitors, teams develop an AdWords campaign for the business. Google
provides each team with US$200 AdWords credit to spend during a 3-week campaign.
To accommodate class schedules across 6 continents, students can run their
campaign for any 3 consecutive weeks from late January to late May.
Students spend their AdWords budget, bid
for keywords, and adjust their campaigns based on monitoring near realtime reports
generated by Google AdWords. These reports include metrics such as visitors'
geographic locations, number of clicks on each ad, the number of times Google
displayed the ad on a Web page, the subsequent click-through rate for each ad, and
the cost per click for each ad. Students compete for ad placement and position
with online advertisers around the world, as well as with student
groups—locally, regionally, and globally.
How students manage their US$200 budget and
3-week campaign depends on the business and student team. For example, some
businesses work with students to improve the website, whereas other businesses
want no website recommendations, or have no idea how to change the website. Businesses often take an active interest in the
campaign.
Selecting the Challenge winners is innovative,
drawing on one quantitative and two qualitative steps. First, a proprietary
Google algorithm examines over 30 campaign factors across 5 broad areas:
account structure, optimization techniques, account activity and reporting,
performance and budget, and relevance. Google uses the algorithm to select the
top 50 teams in each of 3 regions (Americas ,
Europe , and Asia-Pacific). Then in a
qualitative step, Google AdWords specialists trim these 150 teams to 5 teams
per region, or 15 teams. Finally, in the second qualitative step the Academic
Panel chooses regional and global winners from these 15 teams based solely on
two written reports. Panellists whose teams make the final 15 abstain from all
judging.
Experiential learning drives the Challenge
logistics and pedagogy, particularly the Pre-Campaign Strategy and
Post-Campaign Summary. Most instructors assess their students on these reports.
The Pre-Campaign Strategy includes a client overview and proposes an online
advertising strategy with target audience settings, keyword examples,
advertising copy, and projected success metrics. The Post- Campaign Summary
incorporates an industry component with campaign results and client
recommendations, and a learning component with student reflections on learning
objectives, group dynamics, and client dynamics.
