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Revitalize SRITA
Prepared for: Dr. Robert Jackler, Principal Investigator
Prepared by: Nick Clevenger
May 13, 2019
Proposal number: 515-2320
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary 3

Problem/Necessity 4

Project Description 6

Cost Analysis 8

Assessment Strategy 9

Conclusion 10

Appendix 11
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Over the years, SRITA has been building a web repository to support scholarly research and
inform everyday individuals about the promotional activities of the tobacco industry.1 At SRITA,
our team is constantly expanding with the number of summer interns increasing year over year.
We believe that our work is extremely beneficial and that our organization has a duty to raise
awareness on this topic for the betterment of humanity.

Since our organization is heavily focused on research exposure, it is important to examine

SRITA’s online presence to see if we are effectively reaching our audience and capturing their
attention. While the research obtained and compiled thus far is incredibly informative, the way
in which we have displayed that data could use some improvement. I believe that with simple
and creative changes to our current online marketing tools, new audiences can be reached in
order to further spread the truth about the tobacco industry.

To start, we are hoping to expand our social media presence in an effort to entice new users to
follow our various accounts. These accounts would display anything from pieces of our
research to videos about our staff and organizational culture. With a variety of content, our
social media following should continue to grow, raising awareness and creating a tight-knit
community simultaneously.

A second goal we have with this initiative is to completely transform SRITA’s website. Our
current website lacks character, proper formatting, and engaging visuals which ultimately
causes individuals to turn away from the site due to an immediate disinterest. We hope to
create a website that is more welcoming and that catches people’s attention so that they
continue to navigate and learn more about the work that we are doing at SRITA. This will also
be a place where we can display our social media account names, allowing individuals to follow
us on and stay up to date on a recurring basis.

With the recommended solutions presented in this proposal, I whole-heartedly think that we
can grow our audience and create a more engaging experience for our followers.

1Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising (SRITA) is an interdisciplinary research group comprised of students and faculty
members from various Stanford University departments. Their purpose is to analyze the promotional activities and effects of tobacco
advertising with the intention of supporting scholarly works and informing the public about the tobacco industry’s marketing techniques.
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PROBLEM/NECESSITY

Currently SRITA’s main issue is

marketing, whether that be
our lack of social media
accounts or unwelcoming
website. As a whole, having
an online presence in a digital
world is essential to raising
awareness and gaining public
recognition; both goals that SRITA has been attempting to achieve throughout the years. There
are approximately 3.03 billion active social media users today across the various platforms
presented above.2 The organization is missing a huge opportunity in regards to research
exposure due to our underwhelming marketing techniques and tools.

Beginning with some analysis on SRITA’s boring and busy website design, there is an
immediate disinterest in trying to navigate it which disincentives scholars to explore our
research. Additionally, the design deters other members of the general public from learning
more about the organization and
the research that we are
uncovering. This circles back to
the idea of raising awareness and
gaining recognition through the
exposure of our research. In order
to attract more individuals onto
SRITA’s website and ultimately
have them enjoy their experience,
changes need to be made to the
interface and visuals so that users
gain interest and feel welcomed.

2 Standberry, S. (2018, October 15). 35 Digital Marketing Statistics That Will Convince You to Advertise Online. Lyfe Marketing.
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On the other hand, SRITA does not have any popular social media accounts such as
Facebook, Instagram, Snap, and YouTube. Social media platforms are one of the best places
to increase brand exposure, view
viral videos, and build awareness
so it is imperative that SRITA
creates these accounts in order
to grow their brand and public
following, especially with younger
generations. As seen in the
graph pictured here, social media
takes up 33 percent of the average internet user’s time each day, demonstrating that it is the
most effective way to reach larger audiences on a daily basis.3

Incorporating “Sticky” Principles

However, simply posting images on social media accounts and making small changes to the
website would limit the potential success that could come from this overall project. Over the
course of the last month, I have been reading Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick: Why Some
Ideas Survive and Others Die, which introduces some intriguing points about being sticky when
presenting an idea. The authors analyze the stickiness of an idea through simplicity,
unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotionality, and stories. By incorporating some of
these principles into our social media posts and website ideas, we can better communicate
and display our thoughts in hopes of creating more public awareness.

For SRITA, the most effective way of relaying our messages to our followers would be through a
combination of simple, credible, and unexpected ideas. Simple ideas are necessary to help our
audience understand our messages easier while the credibility component is important
because it shows that our work is reliable and factual. As far as unexpectedness, this would be
achieved through posting a variety of unique advertisements on our social media accounts with
a brief caption highlighting the tobacco company’s underlying message.

3 Standberry, S. (2018, October 15). 35 Digital Marketing Statistics That Will Convince You to Advertise Online. Lyfe Marketing.
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PROJECT DESCRIPTION

As stated before, our main goal when coming up with potential solutions for this proposal was
to focus on developing an online presence and creating better marketing tools. The following
solutions will work to create more brand recognition, research exposure, and global awareness
regarding tobacco advertising through the implementation of sticky principles.

Proposed Solutions

My first solution involves the development of a completely new website. We want to make the
site accessible to as many people as possible so it will have a simple and easy to use interface
for those who are unfamiliar with advanced technology. The content on our website will be well
organized and highly credible so our
viewers do not have any issues
regarding the sources of our
research. Additionally, there will be a
huge focus on front page imagery,
color, text, and other visuals because
that will be the first thing someone
sees upon visiting our website.

The new website will also highlight

our team more and have a blog
section for our followers to ask
questions. Each staff member, from
the principal investigator to the seven
interns, will have a chance to write
about themselves and what they hope to get out of their experience at SRITA. The blogging
component, I feel, is an extremely important addition to the site because it allows for individuals
online to feel more closely connected to our team. This sense of community will ultimately
translate over into our social media accounts where followers can comment on or share posts
they enjoyed.
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On top of the website, I felt that the creation of

various social media accounts (Facebook,
Instagram, Snap, YouTube) would help to increase
brand recognition and raise more awareness. With
these accounts, I will be incorporating simple and
unexpected principles into our posts and videos so
that they are more memorable to our followers. By
having this compelling content, there is a higher
probability that posts will be shared throughout that
particular platform which will hopefully lead to additional followers.

As far as Instagram and Facebook posts, I will prioritize content surrounding our research. An
example of this would be to display a striking tobacco advertisement with the caption
explaining the underlying message and goal of the tobacco company that produced the
particular advertisement. With regards to other platforms like Snap and Youtube, I will focus on
displaying SRITA’s organizational
culture through behind the scenes
videos involving members of our
team. Also, it will be encouraged to
contribute to the Snap stories around
the office in order to create and
capture more memorable moments.
Additional content for YouTube will
include Q&A sessions with the staff,
video blogs around the office, intern research projects, and numerous others.

With these marketing changes, I feel that we would not only be benefiting people but positively
impacting profits around the world. Individuals everywhere would be affected by learning more
about our company, mission, and research. On the other hand, profits would increase through
the form of donations due to the enhanced brand exposure. Another form of profits would also
increase and that is regarding potential grants earned from the new scholars using our research
and data.
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COST ANALYSIS

Category Description Cost

Custom Website Design A specific design template that will best represent SRITA $3,000
and the organization’s mission

Labor Costs Having one intern designated to social media content $105
development and management.

7 hours per week of content creation * $15.00 hourly

wage

Note: This is a weekly cost compared to the website

design which is a one time purchase.

Total Costs $3,105

Further Cost Analysis

Social media accounts constantly need to be updated so we will assign an intern to the
creation of content and management of our various accounts. This job will continue for the
foreseeable future so it will be a recurring cost of $105 per week based on the calculation
made in the cost analysis table. The $3,000 cost is for the custom design template for our new
website.

I feel that these costs will ultimately benefit SRITA in a huge way. With the new website and
social media creation and management, our organization will start to draw in more people
which opens up the possibility of increased donations. On top of that, greater exposure means
more scholars will be using our research for their own work and hopefully resulting in some sort
of compensation or grant for those individuals.
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ASSESSMENT STRATEGY

Following the implementation and changes made to our marketing tools, these project success
metrics for the Revitalize SRITA project will be tracked monthly for an entire year. This
quantitative data will then be compared with that of the previous year’s, being that the project
had not been introduced and implemented yet.

Success Metric #1: Website Visits

To start, we can analyze the website traffic that SRITA gets on its website based on the amount
of website visits or clicks. The data involving website visits will then be compared to similar data
compiled from the previous year. Our goal after the implementation of the new website would
be to get 50 percent more website visits each month which seems relatively reasonable to
achieve. Tracking website visits allows our organization to get a better picture of the amount of
individuals viewing our research on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly basis.

Success Metric #2: Social Media Following

Another way we will evaluate the success of our

project will be by tracking our increase in followers
across our various social media platforms. Whether
this be an increase in subscribers on Youtube, a rise
in followers on Facebook and Instagram, or added
friends on Snap, we will take the time to carefully
analyze our social media following throughout the
coming years. Some goals for our social media
following would be to reach 200 followers on both
Instagram and Facebook within a 3 month time period. Additionally, we hope to gain our first
100 subscribers on Youtube during the introductory month of posting videos on the new
channel. If we meet these goals, we will have successfully kickstarted our social media
presence. In the future, our team at SRITA will continue to set follower and subscriber goals in
hopes of growing our brand further and informing more people across the world.
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CONCLUSION

With these proposed solutions, I am very confident that SRITA will be able to reach more
people and gain a significant amount of exposure. This is a tremendous opportunity that will
completely transform the organization for the better. Also, I know that the interactive changes
with the staff will bring more joy to their workday which is ultimately a positive for the
organization. Even though SRITA has been wildly successful in collecting and compiling
research up until this point, it is now time to take the organization to an entirely new level.

I look forward to implementing these solutions sometime in the near future and cannot wait to
watch SRITA’s online presence blossom.
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APPENDIX