Challenge:
Find a gap in the media market and create a data-driven solution. The project should set up a problem, specify a target audience and creatively illustrate a solution through a formal pitch to business professionals.
Solution:
College Ruled is a national online platform that curates and amplifies the best of student journalism. Acting as a central hub, it aggregates high-quality reporting from college publications across the country, offering a dynamic, editorially curated feed that elevates student voices to a national stage. I used design thinking to empathize with my target market and understand the problem. The process included interviewing the key stakeholders of readers, writers and advertisers to inform my strategic solution and compelling brand narrative.
Deliverables:
Pitch Deck, Digital Prototype.
College Ruled Pitch Deck
College Ruled is a national online platform that aggregates and curates the best of student journalism, bridging the gap between campus publications and a wider, online audience.
While student journalists produce high-quality reporting, their work is often limited to narrow campus communities, preventing their stories from reaching the broader public. College Ruled solves this by giving national exposure to student voices, showcasing a diverse range of perspectives that often go underrepresented in mainstream media.
We offer a unique value proposition for writers, readers and advertisers. For student journalists, College Ruled provides a prestigious space to gain recognition and visibility beyond their campuses. For readers, it offers access to diverse, grassroots reporting that gives insight into the issues shaping a young audience. For advertisers, it connects them with a highly engaged demographic of Gen Z students and new professionals.
With a business model focused on partnerships with university publications, local and national advertisers as well as students themselves, College Ruled ensures quality student journalism gets the viewership it deserves. Through data-driven insights, we track engagement and refine content to better serve our audience, offering a unique platform for emerging talent and a fresh perspective on national news within a crowded media landscape. Our name, a play on classic College Ruled notebooks, reflects our mission to be an essential part of the student experience by displaying engaging content that speaks to the future.
ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNALISM