UA News

The policy provides information and examples on how to properly acknowledge UA supporters online.

As some campus units seek out new sources of funding in challenging economic times, The University of Arizona community is asked to review campus policies regarding advertising and sponsor recognition on UA Web sites.

A team led by External Relations and Corporate Relations at the UA has worked to update and clarify existing policies to help answer common questions about online advertising and sponsor acknowledgment. Complete policies are available through the Red Bar Café Web site and UABasics Web site. 

Kate Jensen, assistant vice president for marketing, sent a memo to the campus community last week as part of an effort to make the UA's policies more readily accessible to the campus community. 

"We know a lot of the units on campus are trying to be more entrepreneurial to try and balance their budgets," Jensen said in an interview. 

One commonly asked question is whether it is acceptable to sell advertising on UA Web sites, Jensen said. The answer: Most campus units are not permitted to do so, unless they are authorized by University policy to sell advertising in print media, such as Arizona Athletics and Arizona Student Media.

Many UA community members also wonder about what is appropriate when acknowledging outside supporters on a UA site, Jensen said. While there are a variety of ways to recognize those supporters online, units must comply with specific campus policies.

 "We want units to be able to recognize corporate sponsors," Jensen said. But the idea is to do so without turning UA Web sites into commercial pages.

According to UA policy, some examples of allowable forms of online acknowledgment include the name of a supporting party or business; the party's logo or slogan; the party's brand or trade names; and the party's address, telephone number or Web site address, provided they meet the conditions outlined in the UA policy.

One key condition relates to linking to external Web sites from a UA Web page. Policy dictates that such links may not lead to commercial pages that try to sell a product or that contain a call to action. When linking to a corporate site, the site must be informational only. For example, it's allowable to link to a Starbucks page on community involvement but not to a page that sells the company's product. 

Detailed policies on Web advertising and sponsorship acknowledgement, complete with examples, are available online. Additional questions may be directed to Jensen at 626-5620 or kmjensen@email.arizona.edu.