Google Online Marketing Challenge – Real World Experience or Student Exploitation?

The folks at Google, ever the ‘creative buggers’ that they are, have come up with an excellent educational opportunity for college marketing students. However, what professors likely see as the creation of a real world marketing lab opportunity for students will just as likely be denounced by critics of the search engine giant as Google gains free access to a wealth of potential marketing research by some of the best and brightest students in the world.

According to the search engine giant, the Google
Online Marketing Challenge is a global marketing competition open to “any professor at any Higher Education Institute who wants to enter a class, graduate or undergraduate, regardless of discipline.” Developed by professors in conjunction with the folks at Google, the competition seeks to create small groups of 4-6 students who will work with a local business to create an online marketing campaign using Google AdWords. Students will be given $200 worth of advertising vouchers to work with. The students must first recruit a business that has a website but does not yet use AdWords then develop and implement an online advertising campaign for the business.

Outstanding Potential for Teaching and Learning
Without a doubt the competition provides students “practical, real world online marketing experience.” With much of education deemed too theoretical or manufactured, the competition gives students the opportunity to put their learning to practice. Perhaps just as importantly, given the competitive nature of students, the competition will feature “the excitement of competing with other students from all over the world”.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that Google is offering almost an entire curriculum to professors, including time recommendations for covering online marketing concepts, Google AdWords and for students to be able to recruit their business. The overall timeline for the competition is relatively flexible. Students must run a campaign over 3 consecutive weeks but may do so anytime between the 10th of February and the 24th of May 2008. Final reports must be submitted before June 6 and Google will select global and regional winners in July.

In totality, the opportunities for students and the professors to create meaningful learning is extraordinary. From gaining practical experience in online marketing to the concept of teamwork, the learning is truly endless. In addition, there is also a sense of a community service option by virtue of helping small businesses better understand how to market their service online.

A Windfall for Google as Well
Critics of the competition will see the limitless benefits to Google beginning with the fact that the students are essentially recruiting new potential customers to the lucrative world of online advertising. It is indeed interesting to note what suggestions are given on the “Tips on Selecting Businesses” page of the competition.

Framing the selection of a business already involved in such marketing as one that is likely to be a difficult candidate to improve upon, the program focuses on those businesses not yet spending advertising dollars online. Of course the suggestion also focuses on businesses that “would have keywords with relevance to the types of search queries that Google users conduct” thus furthering Google search engine use.

Needless to say, students who develop an effective online marketing campaign could well bring future dollars to the table from those businesses that have been recruited. At a more sophisticated level, the competition will build Google AdWords awareness within the businesses and the communities where multiple student groups develop effective campaigns. Of course all of the lab work will create a wealth of potential case studies for Google to utilize. From the possibility of new techniques developed by ingenious students to the exploration of new markets, Google gets access to all of the finished materials to further their companies amazing stronghold on the industry.

It also gives Google the chance to potentially hand pick a new talent pool of marketing personnel based on the winning campaigns.

Contest Is a Win-Win
Online advertising jumped 25 percent this year and created roughly $20 billion in revenues. Those numbers are enough to motivate any young business student, making the Google Online Marketing Challenge Competition a win-win opportunity, for students and yes, even for Google.