or, Google Goes to School: Hey Kids, Want Some Free AdWords? That does sound, as Marshall Kirkpatrick puts it, “a little bit creepy.”
But the people in question are university students taking marketing classes. They are not, for example, high school “kids.”
How does the program work? Student teams will receive US$200 of free online advertising with Google AdWords and then work with local businesses to devise effective online marketing campaigns.
I don’t have a problem with this, but then, I teach in a business school (although I don’t teach marketing). I hope that the profs involved will challenge their students to recognize that the Google Online Marketing Challenge is itself a marketing program – for AdWords.