Ad campaign ideas?

Appealing to the Masses

So the school semester is starting and my team is getting ready to recruit new members. However, passing out flyers and such seems like a really tiresome an ineffective way of doing this. Can anyone suggest any good ways to recruit college students?
 
latingal said:
free dance demonstration at an event?
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We do have a Organization Fair coming up so we are hoping to make an impact with our booth. One of our couples will be demoing Salsa I believe. The problem is that last time we did this, the organizers complained about the music being distracting. Hopefully we can keep the volume at an appropriate level, but the event gets noisy in of itself so not many people can hear it easily.
 
What my team did was had an info session/social lesson. If you have some sort of ballroom place on campus with hardwood floors, try seeing if you can reserve the space. What we then did the weekend before the event was we chalked on the sidewalk around campus (main spots being dining halls and the library) and made a facebook group/event. We also told all of our RA friends to tell their friends and residents to come to the social lesson (and if you don't have any RA friends, make some RA friends because they're awesome).

Unfortunately, it rained two days before the event, so we had to do the chalking the night before, but we still had about 60+ people show up for our info session/ social lesson (which is awesome for such short notice); have a few of your members do a sample dance, a couple at each level (if you have it). Then it can be like "this is what you will learn after x amount of time" after you have the dancers introduce themselves and say how long they've been dancing. And about half of them came to our competitive dues-paying team lessons. Hopefully more people will show up next week since there was a huuuuuuuuuge basketball game the night of our lesson (so make sure there aren't any huge scheduling conflicts. ;D). Advertising (handing out flyers, chalking, using the newspaper, networking, etc.) can be really effective if you use all forms of media that is available to you on your campus.

Phew. I wish you the best of luck.
 
Can also try teaming up with other student groups to see if they want to host a lesson for their members at one of their events (and then maybe a few of your lesson takers will take to it)...My team/club frequently get requests for this type of thing so I'd be surprised if there was no interest (we've done events for sororities, business school students, student ethnic groups, etc.)
 
Engineering students?

Heh, I can't imagine any ad that might have got me into dance lessons while I was studying engineering at uni. Most people there made the labs their home. We ate, slept, and of course worked in those labs for days at a time. The commitment required for dance lessons couldn't possibly fit in (I had my guitar playing as an adequate distraction).

But if its any help, here's some very generalised stuff about the sorts of engineers I'm familiar with (may not be true for engineering students in your area):

  • We seek elegance, which usually means simplicity and we need to be creative to achieve that (this is also true for physicists and mathematicians).
  • Civil and mechanical engineers are extroverted (and love beer), all others are introverted.
  • A lot of electrical and electronics engineers are into music - many play an instrument.
  • They may appreciate the opportunity to meet women, since engineering schools often have a skewed demographic. Or they may just appreciate meeting some new faces.
  • A lot of non civil/mechanical engineers are of South or East Asian, or Middle Eastern decent.
  • Software engineers are into gaming (programming games may involve animating human motion.. dance perhaps?).
  • They may have a poor opinion of arts (languages, classics, etc - not fine or performing arts) students ("what did the arts graduate say to the engineering graduate? Would you like fries with that.").
  • Computer systems and electronics engineering students may work with robots, and robots choreographed to music is just cool.

I can't imagine how any of that would help, but perhaps it may give you some ideas on how to appeal to engineering students. (RE the last point: I know CSE students at my uni for one of their projects had to collaborate with students from the performing arts school to choreograph some robots)
 
I saw a poster for a college team a while back (forget which one now) that showed stick figures in some sexual position and under it written "kama sutra" and then some stick figures in a dance dip that was remarkably similar to the sex position and under that was written "ballroom dancing"

LOL very funny and VERY effective.

at columbia, we got guys to attend our annual showcase by displaying some of the ladies' open latin costumes at a club sports fair ;) they had to come to the showcase then, just to "check it out"... however, a significant number of them were intrigued by the dancing itself after watching the performances, and joined the team!!!

but yes, unfortunately, parading the ladies around is sometimes the best way to lure in previously uninterested males... i agree though, that the creepy ones generally do not tend to stick around...
 
NZ_Guy said:
We seek elegance, which usually means simplicity and we need to be creative to achieve that (this is also true for physicists and mathematicians).
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Perfect, ballroom dancing looks simple, but in reality is a mess of complicated factors that, at many times, is creatively jury rigged to work - at least temporarily. *grin*

NZ_Guy said:
Civil and mechanical engineers are extroverted (and love beer), all others are introverted.
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woohoo, beer bust at the beginners waltz lesson!!

NZ_Guy said:
They may appreciate the opportunity to meet women, since engineering schools often have a skewed demographic. Or they may just appreciate meeting some new faces.
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I see latin costumes in the near future.

NZ_Guy said:
robots choreographed to music is just cool.
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Sounds like what I looked like in my beginner's class - ooh not good.

Thanks NZ_Guy, your thoughtful analysis on the engineer typing made me smile!
 
NonieS said:
I saw a poster for a college team a while back (forget which one now) that showed stick figures in some sexual position and under it written "kama sutra" and then some stick figures in a dance dip that was remarkably similar to the sex position and under that was written "ballroom dancing"

LOL very funny and VERY effective.
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I remember that one, one of my favorites! I believe the credit goes to Brown for that one. :)
 
The most effective thing I can think of is a live demonstration at a cafe or similar.

At our engineering school there was live music on Fridays at the engineering cafe performed by engineering students. If there was a dance demonstration to accompany the music, say one style per week, while someone else handed out leaflets, I imagine it would have been successful.
 
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