Two universities — Suffolk and Creighton — have recently suspended advertising campaigns following negative feedback from students. According to Inside Higher Ed, Suffolk claims the change in their advertising approach is due to “new leadership and a desire to increase the university’s visibility in a larger region.” Creighton, on the other hand, admitted they were responding to students’ and alumni’s objections to the advertisements, according to KETV, an ABC affiliate in Omaha.
The Creighton University advertisements featured actors pretending to be students answering the question, “Why Creighton?” One response was, “Because someday I’ll be your boss.” One Suffolk University advertisement read, “A university whose students have their nose to the grindstone instead of stuck up in the air.” The former conveys a kind of elitism that made some Creighton students uncomfortable, and the latter, while it attempts to counter elitism, makes a broad generalization about other institutions of higher education which ends up producing the opposite result.
In order to successfully advertise themselves as a product, universities must find a way to distinguish themselves from other institutions of higher education. But in these cases, it seems as though a school’s attempt to distinguish itself turned into a disingenuous and off-putting portrayal. Some may argue that any kind of media attention (good or bad) is better than none at all, as some prospective students may not have even known about the school at all absent the controversial ads. But advertisements which portray a university’s students as haughty risk losing trust in the current student body.
Creighton students have requested their university establish a student marketing oversight committee, and the school has promised to honor this request. Involving students in advertising efforts may be the best way for an institution to distinguish itself, because the one asset a university has which no other has is its students — all of them with unique stories to tell and diverse perspectives to bring.
The University released a commercial called “Knowledge Armed with Purpose” in 2013 which featured a fourth-year College student. Though universities who are already well-known for their academic excellence, like the University, do not necessarily need big advertising campaigns, this approach exemplifies how students can still be involved in the process of creating advertisements.
Universities that do not already have widespread exposure may need more intensive advertising efforts to solicit more applicants, and students should be taking part in these efforts. Commercials scripted and acted with at least some student participation would increase a sense of student efficacy and would be more likely to portray a school as a product distinct from any other institution.
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