Community Advertising
This community advertising and marketing strategy project was introduced in Chicago to help students explore some of the 77 unique neighborhoods in the area while examining how ads shift between various communities.
For this project, students will work in teams to profile specific neighborhoods in their city. For it to work well, you might consider having groups profile drastically different communities, possibly separated by income, ethnicity, culture, lifestyle or more. For example, the templates here are for neighborhoods in Chicago and there is an effort to have very distinct, different assignments. One group may have Chinatown (predominantly Asian), another Chatham (south side, predominantly black), another Streeterville (high income), and another may be assigned Hyde Park (south side, mainly UofChicago professors and students).
Each group then researches historical and demographic information about their assigned community, including how it was established, average income, housing prices, stakeholder, tribes, etc. Students must also interview people in the neighborhood to learn about what they like, want to be improved, and, more specifically, how they feel about the advertisements placed throughout their community. In the past, students have been given poster sheets to draw their neighborhoods and add in the photos of ads; they also gave PowerPoint presentations detailing the information they gathered and interviews of residents. Please see the presentation below as an idea of how the project came to be and student deliverables (Note: this presentation was given at AEJMC’s Southeast Colloquium for G.I.F.T., or Great Ideas for Teaching):
GIFT-PresentationGoing forward, the goal is for students to work on a PowerPoint template, shown in the PowerPoint above unfinished, that would include all of the necessary information and allow for them to profile two distinct neighborhoods as a comparison model. These presentations can be printed out and displayed as posters in the department.
An accompanying activity: This assignment opens the door for many conversations about access in communities and how we perceive certain neighborhoods. Mid-semester, we do an activity in class where I will give each student a set of images (Starbucks cup, a park, a gym, a dollar store, a liquor store, lottery ads, apple products, and so on). All of their neighborhoods are written on the board and students must place each image under the neighborhood they feel the item would most likely be found. They only get one of each image so they have to make choices. Afterward, we take a look at their choices and research the realities of each neighborhood. This opens up a great discussion about perception vs reality and how resources, even advertisements, in neighborhoods are strongly correlated to data points (income, ethnicity, lifestyle, etc).
Original Assignment: This is the original assignment that asks students to profile one neighborhood in their respective groups. You may adjust it to two neighborhoods for your own class. Click on the buttons below to get the free template.
Community-Advertising-Original-Includes-Field-Work.docxAssignment (Updated with PowerPoint): This is the updated assignment that includes two distinct neighborhoods plus a PowerPoint template for students to record their information. In this project, there is no formal written report and the guidelines act as starting points to develop the final presentations. The major change is that student groups are given two distinctly different neighborhoods in which they will interview residents and take photos of ads to place on a large PowerPoint board. This board also includes their own reflections on the major differences and community demographic information. The PowerPoint is sized to be printed as a large poster so that students may present it in their last class. This updated assignment will be published shortly, as modifications are currently being made.
Assignment (Updated Digital Version, in Reference to COVID-19): As we know, COVID-19 changed the way that we delivered assignments, and one significant difference is making sure students feel safe in not having to venture out to possibly get sick. This is an updated version of the project that allows them to do all of their work from home and use a Google Doc to build a written report. The significant difference here is that you are providing a case scenario and students must analyze community demographics to appropriately position a product/service (in this case, advertising the 2020 Census). This is somewhat of a flipped approach, as they are not looking at ads already in the community but instead they are looking at data to see how best to message content. While the former project really highlighted the issues around how using certain data points creates an image of a neighborhood, the challenge for students here is to use that data more ethically and responsibly. You could also do the activity mentioned above to brace the project and set the direction. My suggestion is to have a follow-up individual reflection where students discuss how they navigated positioning something with data and preconceived ideas about their assigned community. Click on the button below to get the free download (note: you cannot download from the example shown, you have to click on ‘Download Here’).
Community-Advertising-Digital-Adjusted.docx