Academic – Industry – Community Keyword Advertising Project

Several Penn State students earned top honors in the 2009 Google Online Marketing Challenge. Of the 10 Penn State teams, 3 were in the top 15 world-wide (out of 2,107) and the other 7 were in the top 50 in the Americas region (about 900 teams).

What is really great though was the industry – academic – community partnership. I’m always looking for ways to make my research and teaching more immediately relevant to my local community. The Google Online Marketing Challenge integrates subjects that I teach, the students who take those courses and my research programs in a way that directly benefits local business through economic and workforce development in Pennsylvania.

The Challenge also gave me the opportunity to work with university level programs. Several of the student/client partnerships were made possible by collaboration with the Pennsylvania Technical Assistance Program (PennTAP), a unit of Penn State Outreach.

Penn State Outreach provided a keyword advertising seed grant, which I am using to bring keyword advertising expertise to assist small businesses in central Pennsylvania.