Research of Sooner Yearbook

Tina Bradley
May 6, 2008

Research of Sooner Yearbook

Initial research was compiled from various websites, books and Sooner yearbook. While primary and secondary research was conducted from the following client selection not much outside research was readily available regarding college yearbooks. From information obtained by the client only 82 college yearbooks were still in existence in the United States. Since "death of the yearbook" (http://www.collegemedia.org/) story was first reported, CMA Past President Kathy Lawrence of the University of Texas at Austin started compiling figures to try and produce a count of how many college yearbooks are still being published. Her current count puts that total at 533, "far better than the article reflected," she reported to colleagues on the list. (http://www.collegemedia.org/) Based on these reports, one online site – (www.CollegeOTR.com ) (On The Record) -- even went so far as to proclaim "Facebook Kills the College Yearbook." Upon secondary research it was thought that the yearbook would face an ultimate demise due to MySpace and Facebook being so prevalent in today’s society.

The primary focus for the client is to create sales to prevent the demise of Sooner yearbook. During the duration of initial research the found that price was considered a myth. Offered at a minimal price compared to other yearbooks, cost was not considered a primary issue for Sooner. The yearbook for the University of Oklahoma is considered as important as OU Football, right? So lack thereof would create the desire of something to be a chronicle of life spent at university. Colleges that have "lost" or killed off their yearbooks are now struggling, at immense cost, to revive a tradition that, once cut, bleeds. Surely there is a better way to increase morale and straighten the traditional yearbook. (http://www.scj.us/reporter/feb00.htm)
1. Death of the Yearbook
2. Yearbook List
3. Facebook Kills
4. Increase Morale

Yearbooks - Has the Ship Sailed?

Yearbooks – Has the Ship Sailed?
Ashlie Clay

We have all spent hours perusing through our parents’ and grandparents’ yearbooks – laughing at their style of dress, big hair and even bigger glasses. We have anxiously awaited the day when our BFFs could tag all of our inside jokes on the inside cover or the high school heart throb declare "have a great summer" next to his picture with the football team. But in a society where technology and immediate gratification reign supreme, is the yearbook in the traditional sense, still a coveted keepsake to occupy our shelves?

This is the dilemma my group is facing with our client Sooner, the OU yearbook. With the creation of Crimson Traditions, a freshman only yearbook included in Camp Crimson fees, Sooner became a “senior only” book; problem being that seniors are not buying the book that has been largely created and customized for this specific audience. Many students are not even aware that OU has a yearbook, let alone know where to purchase one or are even familiar with the content.

Seniors spend three years at OU as freshman, sophomores and juniors without even so much as a peep from Sooner. So when senior year roles around, they are bombarded with mass emails about graduation photos, Sooner Shots and this elusive “must-have” tradition. But how can you expect a senior class to care about a book that has blatantly ignored them for the majority of their college career?

Facebook and MySpace present even more challenges to an already apathetic fan base. With real-time results and customization capabilities that expand beyond just the University, these new high-tech social networks could quite possibly be the demise of college yearbooks. So the dilemma becomes the choice between acquiescing to technology and convenience or re-affirming the value in tradition and nostalgia. This inevitably forces those few collegiate yearbooks still in print to find creative means of marketing and design to re-capture their target audience and revive this time-old tradition.

Additional Sources:

Friendless Facebook like Yearbook without Signatures

Bringing Back the Yearbook

Trends Conspire Against Yearbook

Live! Laugh! Love! Memories at the University of Oklahoma

Live! Laugh! Love! Memories at the University of Oklahoma

How will you remember your college experience: the joy of being accepted into the university; the winning football game; invaluable time spent with friends or the memorable ice storm? If you are a sentimental person, you probably want to have something that will capture the essence of your time here.

Innovative PR, a student group in Public Relations campaigns, took on the task of generating the importance of nostalgia. Lori Brooks, Sooner Yearbook advisor, and her staff are concerned that the typical way of storing your memories, having a yearbook, is dissipating.

Sooner Yearbook is not alone in this fear. In fact, several prestigious yearbooks are dissolving. In fact, the University of Oklahoma’s rival, University of Texas, has continued to wrestle with external factors against its yearbook, The Cactus.

The external factors that are battling with these issues are: Facebook and MySpace. These social networks allow their audience to feel an instant connection to each other.

According to Jeff Macintyre, “They meticulously broadcast all manner of hopes, dreams, and whims. Testimonials for friends and crushworthy strangers abound.” The article goes on to say that yearbooks allow people to find out what others thought of them. These social networks just do that in a more instantaneous manner.

So if technical social networks are more popular than the traditional annual, why should students buy them? According to LeeAnne Harker and Darcher Keltner in their study of Expressions of Positive Emotion in Women's College Yearbook Pictures and Their Relationship to Personality and Life Outcomes Across Adulthood, suggest positive images of oneself can be linked to positive thoughts of yearbook photos several years later. If that is the case, it is our duty to express the importance of nostalgia among college students. Perhaps if students feel invested in their college yearbook they will be more apt to purchase it.

In our quest to promote nostalgia, we are attempting to promote a positive behavior and attitudes towards the yearbook. The research rendered that Sooner is statistically not perceived well. It is our hope that we express that individual students can collectively save the yearbook, while retaining a piece of their history. We have crafted our campaign based on primary and secondary research. The bulk of our campaign will occur on April 5 and April 7.