Effective Advertising Methods: Promoting

Rebecca Hudish Jamie Lavin Lauren Rossi Devin Weakland

MyCollegeSublets.com a website service that matches a

temporary renter to an existing lease. database includes every

college/university in the U.S. Free of charge

http://mycollegesublets.com/

Management Decision Problem: The developers of MyCollegeSublets.com

are lacking a marketing plan to spread awareness of the website on college campuses.

They need to create an effective advertising campaign in order to promote their site.

Market Research Problem: To find the most effective advertising

methods that would attract Penn State students to the site.

Purpose: To find the overall attitudes towards

college subletting within the Penn State community

To find the most effective advertising methods to promote MyCollegeSubets.com at Penn State

Survey: Administered a survey to a sample size of

75 Penn State students Survey was divided into 2 sections:

Overall attitude towards subletting Overall attitude towards on-campus

advertising

How many years do you plan on living off-campus?

15%

41%

29%

8%

7%

1 year

2 years

3 years

4+ years

do not plan on living offcampus

Reasons why students may leave Penn State for an extended period of time:

Summer break/internship/study abroad Fall co-op/study abroad Spring co-op/ study abroad

93% of our respondents indicated they would leave campus for one of these reasons.

Advertising To Sell:

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Facebook Twitter Word ofMouth

Craig's List SubletWebsite

Flyer CommunityBulletinBoard

Other

If you saw a website solely for subletting, how likely would you be to access the website?

Definitely Access 29%

Probably Access 54%

Probably Not Access

17%

Definitely Access

Probably Access

Probably Not Access

Definitely Not Access

Advertising To Buy:

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Only 2 respondents (2.7%) indicated that they have sublet their apartment to another individual in the past.

Most Effective Advertising Methods:

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

How long do you think the average college student spends on social media sites?

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

0-15 Minutes 16-30 Minutes 31-59 Minutes 1-2 Hours 2+ Hours

Approximately 79% of respondents indicated that they read the daily collegian at least once per week.

Approximately 25% of respondents indicated that they read the daily collegian 4-5 times a week.

Bivariate: Correlation between respondents who read the newspaper and read the ads in the Daily Collegian

Correlations

Newspaper CollegianAds

Newspaper Pearson Correlation

1 .250*

Sig. (2-tailed)

.031

N 75 75

CollegianAds Pearson Correlation

.250* 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .031

N 75 75

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Ho: ρ=0 HA: ρ≠ 0 a=0.05 P=0.031 Reject null hypothesis r=.250 There is a slightly positive correlation.

Bivariate: Who spends more time on social media sites: men or women?

Ho: There is no difference between the amount of time each gender uses social media HA: There is a difference between the amount of time each gender uses social media a=0.05 x2= 5.119 p=0.163 Do NOT reject the null hypothesis. There is no difference between the genders in the population.

SocialMedia * Gender Crosstabulation

Count

Gender

Total Male Female

SocialMedia 16-30 min 3 3 6

31-59 min 8 5 13

1-2 hours 10 26 36

3-4 hours 7 13 20

Total 28 47 75

Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymp. Sig. (2-

sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 5.119a 3 .163

Likelihood Ratio 5.026 3 .170

Linear-by-Linear Association 1.961 1 .161

N of Valid Cases 75 a. 3 cells (37.5%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum

expected count is 2.24.

Bivariate: Would people who are considering subletting access the website?

Zdifference test= -0.877 Ho: µ1=µ2 HA: µ1≠ µ2 a=0.05 p= 0.380 Do NOT reject the null hypothesis

There is no difference between respondents who are considering subletting and those who would access the website.

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Consider 75 1.00 11.00 1.8267 1.33936

Access 75 1.00 11.00 2.0133 1.24654

Valid N (listwise) 75

Limitations Non-probability sample

Convenience Judgment

Small sample size Sample size: 75 Penn State students 63% of respondents were female 39% of the respondents were juniors

Spurious correlations Lack of skip intervals for some questions

Recommendations 1. Social Media

Facebook Gender-neutral advertising Unlimited reach

2. Newspapers The Daily Collegian

3. Free promotional merchandise Brand awareness

4. New logo Fit advertisement space Draws attention Represents target market

Current Logo

Questions/comments?