It’s Not Easy Being Green

1. It’s Not Easy Being Green …So Here’s How: Rachel Brenner John Ko Rebecca Ruvalcaba Chantal Variot Wai Yung

2. Working with Green Campus • To provide Green Campus with means of communication with diverse student bodies • To promote their campaign and energy conservation competition through advertising

3. Project Objectives Marketing Outcomes: Learning Outcomes: • Infuse energy and energy efficiency concepts into academic curricula • Promote energy efficiency outreach through educational campaigns • Educate students on ways to reduce energy usage on campus • Encourage all residents to participate in energy conservation competition through advertisement • Build a community for residents where they are able to work together towards a single goal • Practice style and structures of professional writing • Develop oral communication practices useful for professional settings • Cultivate inter-personal, intercultural, and leadership communicating strategies • Analyze needs of different audiences in various rhetorical strategies

4. Project Plan • Elect leader • Set up regularly scheduled meeting times to discuss project • Schedule meetings with our Green Campus client, Martin • Designate work to each group member • Create posters for energy conservation competition Unfortunately the energy competition had to be postponed until Fall 2011 due to troubles measuring separate energy consumption in the Summits Residence Halls. With the postponed date, we were able to focus our time and energy on marketing strategies. Along with the help of SATAL, we conducted a focus group that enabled us to study UC Merced student’s awareness and attitudes toward sustainability and green marketing. The focus group was composed of 4 students from WRI-30.

5. Focus Group Results Brainstorming Activity 1. The participants were asked for examples of how they would conserve energy, and responded with the following: • Recycle • Carpool • Hybrid cars • Unplug chargers • Turn off light switches • Use less resources that destroy habitats • Biking over driving • Conserve animal habitats • Natural lighting 2. They were also asked to rate different forms of advertisements. The table below shows how many students scored each method of advertisement in terms of effectiveness.

6. Focus Group Results Main Questions 1. How much of an effort do you put into conserving energy during your daily lives? (Turn lights off, less water use, etc) • 75%- use natural light instead of electricity • 50%- carpool • 25%- open windows instead of air conditioning • 25%- turn TVs off at night when not being watched 2. What do you think is the most effective way to conserve energy? • 25%- turn off laptops and other electronics when not being used • 25%- ride a bike to school • 50%- be aware of how much energy is wasted 3. If we were to do an Energy Competition between the residence halls and your hall won, what kind of realistic prize would you want for your hall? • 100%- free food from off campus

7. Focus Group Results Main Questions (cont.) 4. What do you think is the most effective way to communicate with UC Merced students? • 100%- social networking • 75%- emails with “attention-grabbing” titles • 25%- disliked emails • 50%- “bright, pretty, and attention grabbing” posters

8. Significance of Results to Marketing Conserving Energy • Arouse residents’ awareness for conserving energy • Incorporate energy saving tips into advertisements Communication • Use social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to effectively communicate with UCM students • Create invitations for competition through social networks • Send emails with interesting titles • Produce posters that attract attention Consideration • Biased sample not decent or realistic representative of UCM students • Allowed us to adjust marketing strategies

9. With the results from the focus group we were able to better understand our target audience and thus adapt our marketing strategies in accordance. We present the following Residence Hall Energy Competition posters: