The faculty meme challenge

There’s a meme for that. Yearbook staffs smartly use humorous memes to promote ad sales and distribution information. But a clever new strategy has schools utilizing their faculty and staff to personalize those memes. Let’s make your teachers and coaches as famous as those “Hey Girl,” Ryan Gosling memes.

Okay, maybe nothing will be as popular as those Hey Girl memes, but it’s worth a shot. At the least, the meme challenge is a fun way to personalize marketing memes and involve faculty in the yearbook. (While we may not be in school right now, this is a great remote learning assignment!)

Alamo Heights adviser Kristin Cade shared the idea on the Balfour Advisers Facebook group. At a varsity basketball game, a yearbook photographer snapped a picture of the head coach. While a closed eye picture might normally warrant the delete button, Cade’s staff recognized its potential. After getting permission from the coach, they turned the image into a great yearbook meme.

An Alamo Heights High School marketing meme created on PhotoGrid used their own basketball coach to remind students to buy a yearbook.

The post inspired other advisers to join in. B.F. Terry High School adviser Denise Adams turned the idea into a marketing assignment, asking yearbook staffers to create the memes on their phones. They were able to choose any faculty or staff member they were comfortable with and game teachers put on their best (and worst) faces. All in the name of yearbook.

The assignment was successful on numerous levels. The staff created buy-in with the faculty and staff, bringing a higher awareness of the importance of yearbook. They created a personal connection for the audience by using familiar subjects. And Adams created an additional grading opportunity, not an easy task in the yearbook world.

B.F. Terry High School staffers created yearbook sales memes using their own faculty and staff. Staffers contacted teachers, photographed them, and created the memes on their phones. Each staffer then shared the creations on personal student media accounts. 

Riverdale High School also joined the faculty meme challenge. Adviser Caron Peck shared some of her favorites on the Facebook group. Staffers utilized their school librarian in a fun twist on the “Don’t judge a book by its cover” saying and also created a meme specifically to run on the first day of the school week.

The Riverdale High School staff used faculty members and their 2020 cover in memes, revealing only the spine and back lid.

Is your school up for the challenge? The faculty meme challenge is an innovative way to involve the staff in the yearbook progress, connect with buyers, sell additional books, and have a little fun along the way. And if all else fails, you can keep using the “Hey Girl,” Ryan Gosling memes to sell books.