Advertising TVs still in the works

The necessity for fliers and posters announcing various campus events may soon become an old fad. Last November, the President's Council of the IU Residence Hall Association passed a bill to place big-screen plasma TVs in various residence halls and other campus buildings from Sadge Media, a collegiate advertising agency in Cincinnati.\nRPS Executive Director Pat Connor said in a November 2003 Indiana Daily Student story the TVs could appear as soon as January or February of this year. Although the deal hasn't been completed yet, Sadge Media President Dan Penn said the possibility still exists. \n"Nothing has been signed yet," Penn said. "We are very excited at having this opportunity at IU. We currently have a lot of great schools, and this would just further legitimize what we do."\nSome of the other universities using Sadge Media include Ohio State, Michigan State and Duke. Penn said there will be many benefits to having the advertising on IU's campus. One advantage is IU's proximity to Indianapolis.\n"This deal is related to having a bigger TV market in Indianapolis," Penn said. "It is ranked around 25th among Designated Market Areas. Besides this, IU is just a great name to have."\nPenn also said Sadge Media will replace broken screens free of charge and leave it up to IU to decide the location of the screens as well as their content.\n"The school would have complete control," Penn said. "If it doesn't sit well, they can choose to do whatever they want with it. We would be guests on campus."\nSadge Media has received positive feedback not only from the schools already using the agency's advertisements, but from IU students and staff as well. Connor said the advertisements will do plenty to communicate IU's many benefits and services.\n"An independent survey of some other campuses who already have Sadge Media showed a favorable response," Connor said. "Sadge has recently announced some enhancements that would introduce news, weather and sports highlights into the rotation."\nAs for the location of the TVs, Connor said specific areas will be targeted which see more student activity than others.\n"This product, by design, would only be located in high-traffic areas where students might also be waiting for a service and would not be spread all over campus," Connor said. "Initially, there would probably be no more than three to four screens total in our residence hall system."\nTeter President Deepam Rusia said there are several benefits to screens being placed in the residence halls.\n"Residence hall student governments as well as RPS will be able to display their own informational messages on the screens," Rusia said. "Also, the revenue that RPS receives from Sadge Media will be placed into a fund to be used for programming in the residence halls. In other words, this money will go back to the students."\nAndrew Walker, director of media relations for RHA, said the screens being installed would be a "tremendous benefit" for residents, in most part for the freedom involved with the use of the screens.\n"Staff and student representatives will decide what commercials will air," Walker said. "We are not obligated to air specific advertisements if we do not feel that ad should be aired. Sadge Media will even produce our advertisements free of charge."\nThe use of this sort of advertising, and specifically that of Sadge Media, seems to be something that will catch on with many universities, Connor said. \n"The primary reason is that Sadge Media provides a new avenue that an institution can use to inform/update their students about issues that have campus wide impact," Connor said. "This is an area where most universities are continually looking for new solutions; how can we best communicate with our current students"