Unconventional funding
District 196 aims to earn revenue from website ads beginning this fall
by Aaron Vehling
Thisweek Newspapers
Like the community it serves, the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan School District is resorting to creative avenues for income during financially uncertain times.
Officials at District 196 are hoping to open up their websites to advertising.
As part of the 2010-11 budget, there is a revenue category for about $25,000 for revenue from that form of advertising, said district communications specialist Tony Taschner. The actual revenue from web ads is unknown.
The type of ads would likely encompass restaurants and local businesses, Taschner said. He has been looking at districts in other states that have web ads and noted some obvious arrangements, such as ads for orthodontists.
Taschner discussed the issue with the School Board at its retreat last week.
The idea is still in a nascent stage because there are still guidelines and content questions to address.
For example, Taschner told the board about the size limitations for banner and display ads on the district’s front page.
“There are designated areas and maximum sizes of where you are going to place (an ad),” he said.
Taschner suggested serving up “logo size” ads that link to an external site.
“It’s more subtle in terms of how it is incorporated into the page,” he said. The site’s users, he added, could click on the ad link, which would lead to a website for the advertiser. Sandwiched between those would be a page that indicates the web user is “now leaving the district’s website.”
Each school in the district has its own website, Taschner said, which means uniform standards for ad size is a more difficult guideline to achieve than such standards for content of ads.
Pricing is ambiguous at best. Taschner said it is something they must “let the market bear.”
One concern a couple board members had was with the content of the advertising.
Among the questions was a hypothetical situation in which an anti-smoking ad featured a snuffed out cigarette. In this instance, the message has a noble anti-smoking focus, but the image would still portray tobacco.
Taschner told board members the district has the power over what it wants to allow as advertising. Among that which it forbids from any type of advertising are drug references, weapons and political ideas. This district uses this policy to regulate the minimal amount of advertising that is used in the yearbook and on programs for concerts and sporting events.
Wait and see
District 196’s foray into web-based advertising serves as a test for at least one neighboring district.
In Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191, the administration is not actively pursuing website ads, but communications director Ruth Dunn does not dismiss the future of such a venture.
District 191 is waiting to see how it goes in 196, she said.
“I think we should consider it,” she said. “Our home page received 280,000 hits one month last spring, so there is potential there.”
Ads on lockers?
Taschner and the board also discussed wrap-around advertising on lockers and floors in schools, an arrangement that could bring in about $1 million a year. The ads would consist of graphics printed on an adhesive such as 3M’s Controltac.
The type of businesses that would attract include Crayola, PBS, Underwater World and General Mills.
The board responded coldly to the idea.
“I’m not ready to go with this yet,” said Board Member Kevin Sampers.
But the future of such advertising is not dead yet.
“Ten years ago we would not be having this conversation at all,” Taschner said, “but today we are because of the situation with the schools’ (finances).”
Taschner is referring to the $6 billion deficit the state faces, which is about one-fifth of the entire budget. With education comprising 40 percent of the entire state budget, schools are bound to see reduced funding, he said.
The web ads could show up as early as this fall, but the board is treading lightly into this new territory.
“The board,” Taschner said, “is cautious.”
Aaron Vehling is at aaron.vehling@ecm-inc.com.
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