A recent study done by College Publisher, Boston, found that more than 50 percent of college undergraduates and graduates are most likely to pay attention to text-link advertisements.
The study, called the Second Annual College Newspaper Readership Survey, compares text-ads to non-animated, animated, interactive, video, game based and pop-up ads. The pop-up was the least effective ad type, with a response rate of less than 5 percent.
The survey asked 7,500 U.S. college undergraduates, graduate students and recent alumni about their readership preferences and the effectiveness of online advertising.
In order to get their attention, 45 percent of the youth reported the service that was advertised needed to appeal to them. This was the biggest draw for students followed by simplicity, coming in at 32 percent, or attractive design, at 31 percent. The least effective attention-getters were interactivity, flashiness and the copy.
College Publisher, a division of Y2M: Youth Media & Marketing Networks, also found trends in news readership. Fifty percent of young college undergrads and grads never read the print version or visit the Web sites of the nation’s top dailies: USA Today, The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal.
Instead, students are turning to the print version of their college paper: 77 percent read it at least once a month. The most popular source of national news was online at CNN.com. Fifty-five percent of respondents stated they visited the site sometimes or frequently, according to College Publisher.
