EXCLUSIVE: YUSU to stop Glide advertising at end of deal

(Image: Harry Clay)

YUSU’s advertising deal with Glide appears to have gone tits up over the summer after students gave an overwhelmingly negative response to sponsored posts.

YUSU have made 19 posts (as of Sep 21) promoting Glide, an all-inclusive student utility bills solution, using social media.

The posts started in the middle of April, and ran to the end of September.

Each post claims that Glide can make sorting utilities easier in a student house, along with the pretty bizarre idea that Glide can help shatter student stereotypes; although paying money to have someone else sort your responsibilities out sounds exactly like a student to York Vision.glide

The start of the advertising deal appeared to focus on Facebook and Twitter, but after a series of particularly heated posts in July, posts are now only appearing on Twitter.

As confirmed by a YUSU insider source, this is due to the fact that the Facebook posts received some negative engagements, whereas the tweets didn’t seem to reach as many people. Indeed, around half the engagement that YUSU had on Twitter, was from the @GlideStudent Twitter account itself.

YUSU has had other dealings with Glide in the past, including similar style social media advertising, as well as more major sponsoring.

In April, Glide posted on Facebook claiming to be proud of sponsoring Roses, as one of the biggest varsity events in the country. Looks like nobody told them that it is the largest.

The seriousness of the response from students has varied wildly, with many taking a hard line. One student has responded claiming that Glide “promise a lot and don’t deliver”, while another questions why YUSU have done the deal in the first place “when they’ve ripped off so many students.”

Others have taken a more light-hearted approach, writing ‘glide are absolute goopsters, demonic goblins of the highest order. delet [sic] this’.

While some students enjoy their shitposting, it seems evident that it has had an effect.

A takeaway from the reaction data, is that there is little to no real positive student reaction.

The vast majority of reactions were angry, with over 50 posted, and although there were a few likes they were from former students, SU officers, and largely Glide themselves.

The response rate on each post is much lower on Twitter than it is on Facebook, and while YUSU are clearly contractually obligated to complete their part of the deal, it seems to be a neat way to bury what was clearly a very poor choice for advertising.

After we asked for comment, Samara Jones told York Vision: “Students’ disappointment with Glide came to our attention from engagement on one of the paid social media adverts.

“YUSU relies on external advertising for income to invest in our charitable student activities and we are particularly responsive to student feedback; we asked Glide to address the concerns and comments on the public post.

“We also took the decision to fulfill the contractual agreement over the summer and not work with Glide for the foreseeable future in direct response to students’ feedback.” Vision sincerely hopes this is the case.