More than 400,000 students respond to CPA recruitment campaign.

• Position: Newsupdate - Certified Public Accountants

Launched in Nov. 2001, the "Start here. Go places." CPA student recruitment campaign has achieved impressive results in building awareness and understanding about the profession among high school and college students and changing perceptions of the profession. Following are some statistics as of July 31: more than 400,000 students have responded to the campaign, and nearly 99,000 registered on the campaign's Web site with more than 80,000 of them opting in to receive more communications from us. In addition, we have more than 46,000 high school leads and over 34,000 college leads.

Now two years into the five-year effort, the recruitment campaign has matured to address the needs of the students and to migrate them closer to pursuing accounting--and later CPA certification. Reaching out to new students who have not yet been exposed to the campaign remains an objective as well.

If the fall campaign is in keeping with past results, this semester's activities should prove quite promising. Students will be surrounded in their daily activities with posters, ads, direct mail, e-mail, bookmarks, online lead generation and advertising through various relevant partners and--new this year--e-newsletters. All of these materials drive students to the campaign's Web site, www.startheregoplaces.com. There, students engage in pertinent business and accounting content, compete in business simulation games, and participate in contests and promotions--all designed to keep them involved and motivated to pursue business, accounting and CPA certification.

Just as the...