Social Proof #2: let's clear your Uni's name

Students pay for your college's brand, they shouldn't see the logos on Essay Mills.

I previously wrote about the concept of “social proof” where sites and companies leverage 3rd party relationships to build trust with new potential customers.

Poll: Social Proof and Essay Mill unchecked usage of your institution's brand...

It works like this:

1. I visit a website/company

2. I see a recognizable name “used by” “partnered with”

3. I feel more comfortable and continue through the customer journey (increasing the likelihood of making a purchase/becoming a customer).

It’s simple stuff and solid marketing to draw in new customers and build your brands reputation. In many cases this is a legitimate and agreed upon use of brands and logos to help an unestablished or unfamiliar brand leverage their hard work, contracts, and relationships as a multiplier.

Big However, in the case of Essay Mills they are using 1. your college’s brand with which they have no relationship to 2. dupe students into assuming that other classmates have walked the same path. They use “social proof” (“students like you”) as a moral rationalization¹ tool.

Lots of euphemisms for “we help students cheat,” my favorite is “satiate”

We’ve crosschecked 300+ Essay Mills for this tactic and found two things:

1. 38 Essay Mills engaged in this tactic

2. 197 unique college and university brands leveraged

3. 366 total mentions across the 38 sites

Taking Action

The last few weeks here at the University of Maryland I’ve been working first through the General Counsel’s office and then the Office of Licensing to build awareness and see what appetite there was to get the UMD official seal off of two essay mills.

Just like in our poll, it’s obvious that removing the logo from these sites is priority 1.

So, I’m going to paste a list of the impacted higher ed institutions below (alpha order) and if your institution is on the list contact me (replies back to this will end up in my inbox). I’ll provide you a template email and information for passing this along to get the ball rolling… and maybe, just maybe we’ll find a GC or university administrator that wants to take this a little further than “please remove my logo”.

School List

Al Falah U

American U

American U in Dubai

American U of Shariah

Aston U

Auburn U

Australian Catholic U

Australian N'tl U

Baylor

Berkeley

BITS Pilani

Bond U

Boston U

Brown

California Inst. of Tech.

California State U

Cardiff U

Carnegie Mellon

Central Michigan U

Chamberlain

Charles Darwin U

Charles Sturt U

Chiu Hai College

City U of Hong Kong

City U of London

Colorado State

Columbia

Concordia U

Cornell

CQ U

Curtin U

Dalhousie U

Dartmouth

Deakin U

Dhofar U

DRB-HICOM U (Malaysia)

Drexel

Dubai Institute of Design

Duke

Exeter

Federation U Australia

FIU

Flinders U

Florida State

Franklin Pierce

Georgia Tech

Grand Canyon U

Griffith U

Hamline U

Hang Seng U

Harvard

Heriot Watt U

Holmes Inst.

Hong Kong Baptist U

Hong Kong Metro. U

HULT Int'l Bus. School

Imperial College London

Indiana U

Int'l Compliance Assoc.

James Cook U Aus

Johns Hopkins

Keele U

Kelley School of Bus.

Kennesaw State U

Kent State

King Khalid U

King's College London

La Trobe U

Lancaster U

Lingnan U

Macquarie U

Manchester Metro. U

Manchester U

Massey U

McGill

McMaster U

Michigan State

Middlesex U

Minnesota State

MIT

Monash U

Murdoch U

Nat'l U of Singapore

Northeastern U

Northern Illinois U

Northumbria U

NYU

NYU Abu Dhabi

Occidental College LA

Ohio U

Oxford

Oxford Brookes U

Pacific U Oregon

Penn State

Princeton

Purdue

Qatar U

Queen's U

Queensland U of Tech

Regent U

Rice

RMIT U

Salford U

Seattle U

Sheffield Hallam

Shue Yan U

SIM U

SIngapore Inst. of Tech

Sorbonne U

Staffordshire U

Stanford

Strayer

Suffolk U Boston

Swinburne U

TAFE Aus

Texas A&M

Texas State

Torrens U of Aus

Trinity College Dublin

Tsinghua U

Tung Wah College

U College Cork

U of Adelaide

U of Arizona

U of Arizona

U of Arkansas

U of Auckland

U of Birmingham

U of Bristol

U of California

U of Cambridge

U of Canada West

U of Canberra

U of Canterbury

U of Chicago

U of Dubai

U of Durham

U of Edinburgh

U of Georgia

U of Glasgow

U of Greenwich

U of Hong Kong

U of Illinois

U of Liverpool

U of London

U of Maryland

U of Melbourne

U of Miami

U of Michigan

U of Minnesota

U of Montreal

U of New England (Aus)

U of New Mexico

U of Newcastle

U of NH

U of Notre Dame

U of Penn

U of Queensland

U of Sci & Tech. China

U of Sheffield

U of South Aus

U of South Carolina

U of South Wales

U of Southern Queensland

U of Sunderland

U of Sussex

U of Sydney

U of Tasmania

U of Texas at Austin

U of Toronto

U of VA

U of Virginia

U of Washington

U of Western Aus

U of Wollongong

UAE Univ.

UC Davis

UC SD

UCL

UCLA

UCSI U

Unitec U

United States U

UNSW Canberry

UNSW Sydney

UOW College Hong Kong

USC

UTS Sydney

UWA Perth

VA Tech

Victoria U of Wellington

Virginia State

Virginia Tech

Walden

Warwick

West Virginia U

Williams College

Yale

1. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02912/full