George Bruton, CEO/Founder, SkoolLive
How did you come up with the idea for SkoolLive?
My mom is a school teacher, so school has always been a big part of my life. I’ve always been an “Ad Tech” kind of guy and wanted to help schools improve the technology they use on campus and improve school-to-student communication. Our company goal is to have SkoolLive be the daily destination for informative, interesting and engaging content that positively inspires and excites youth culture on high school campuses across America. Through my mom, I saw first-hand the effects of budget cuts, so giving back to schools was an important and mandatory part of formulating my business model. SkoolLive gives back a share of all advertising revenue generated to our participating high schools.
What does the SkoolLive kiosk offer to both educators and students?
Everyone benefits from SkoolLive. At no cost, schools get digital technology on campus that they otherwise may not be able to afford. The speed and quality of school-to-student communication is improved. It is a better experience for students. Schools generate much-needed revenue, and advertising partners can deliver their message while financially supporting schools. Finally, the digital kiosks reduce visual clutter and save tons of time, money and trees.
Talk about the advertising aspect of SkoolLive as it relates to higher education.
High school is a real transition time for students as they move into adulthood and toward the more adult issues of work, career and college. There are so many choices, each vying for a student’s consideration. The career-decision landscape is crowded and competitive. SkoolLive offers a proven, successful digital marketing tool to increase brand awareness and to help college admissions departments achieve enrollment goals.
What makes SkoolLive an attractive advertising platform?
The SkoolLive network provides a pure, focused audience–high school students. These Gen-Z students are digital natives and grew up touching, clicking and swiping screens so they gravitate to technology and naturally engage with our interactive digital kiosk ads. Advertising on SkoolLive is a perfect complement to other marketing initiatives of any admissions department, and advertising on the SkoolLive network is affordable and a good value.
Is there a best time of year to advertise on the SkoolLive kiosk?
For brand awareness many of our higher education ad partners advertise throughout the academic year. During the period of January through April students are actively evaluating their career opportunities and SkoolLive advertisers see peak engagement. During this four-month period, you want to impress and engage with full-screen interactive ads.
What has been some of the feedback and some of the other things you’ve learned since starting SkoolLive?
The SkoolLive network extends to high school campuses nationwide, but higher education advertising partners can select only those school campuses they wish to advertise on. For example, Mt. San Jacinto College has been a 10-campus advertiser in California for the last two years. Arizona State University, while located in Arizona, first targeted four campuses in California and have subsequently expanded to six campuses with its second ad. Pima County Joint Technological Education District, also in Arizona, advertised on nine campuses in 2015 and are back in the same nine schools for 2016-17. Some feedback from our high schools is they like SkoolLive as we are helping lift the burden of fundraising from their shoulders, giving them more time for teaching, coaching and other education-related activities.
For more information, visit skoollive.com/partnerships
