Tourney ads to showcase Penn's image

Click here to view the first NCAA Commercial.Click here to view the second NCAA Commercial.

Note: The third commercial, which focuses on John Heisman, inventor of the forward pass in football, was not set to be released at the time of publication.

If the Quakers go to the NCAA basketball tournament this March, the "Not Penn State" T-shirt might have to be retired along with senior point guard Ibrahim Jaaber's jersey.

For the first time, Penn has chosen to take advantage of the free ad space given to all tournament participants by the CBS network and will air one of three 30-second spots that it has developed with the advertisement agency Red-Tettemer.

The University came under criticism last March when it failed to air a commercial during last year's NCAA tournament game against Texas, a spot that was worth about $300,000.

"Last year was the first year we had heard much about" the ads, said Vice President of University Communications Lori Doyle. "When I looked at the opportunity, I thought it was too good to pass up."

Each version of the ad features a different influential Penn graduate and a description of their personal connection to the University: John Heisman, inventor of the forward pass in football, Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News and Grammy award-winner John Legend.

"The single idea that we're trying to get across with the ad is that a Penn education inspires ingenuity," Doyle said. "It's an idea that's very simple but, we hope, very powerful."

Yet, obvious as it may have been for the University to take advantage of the free advertising opportunity, Penn's motivations for airing the spot go beyond the desire for exposure.

The University has struggled with its branding, and besides an attempt to shake the "Not Penn State" label, it is also combatting the widespread perception that it is not a part of the Ivy League.

According to a 2002 nationwide survey, only 21 percent of respondents recognized Penn as a member of the Ivy League. Among the same group, 68 percent associated "Penn" with Penn State.

To that effect, two of the three commercials directly link Penn with the Ivy League.

"The idea is to have more people be aware of the status of this institution," said Gauri Kapoor, group account director at Red-Tettemer. "That space wasn't being taken by Penn - it was occupied more by Harvard, Princeton and Yale" universities.

Both Doyle and representatives from Red-Tettemer emphasized that the ad was geared toward an audience that was less familiar with Penn.

"This campaign isn't necessarily targeted for the people applying to the University," said Dani Louchheim, senior account executive at the agency. "Anyone considering Penn will already know what it represents."

But despite the University's intentions, the ads may indeed have the added effect of convincing prospective students to consider a Penn education - especially those who put a premium on a school's prestige.

"Sure, Penn is already on many prospective student's radar screens," College Confidential senior counselor Sally Rubenstone wrote in an e-mail. But it still has "a ways to go to match the more widely acknowledged Ivies."

The University would get another chance to run a commercial if Penn were to beat its first-round opponent.

Comments (14)

Just for Fun, can we cut the resolution of the Ad, so it's not an 83MB download? And post it to www.upenn.edu? Leverage the school's core strengths and use them for its own benefit: marketing.....

Where's the 3rd ad?

anyone else having trouble wuith the audio on this? Looks great, but I can't understand what being said....its jumping all over the place....

Why do the ads show the Quad and Fisher Fine Arts? I guess Hill and Van Pelt didn't make the cut.

....it would have been nice to see a panoramic of College Green and Locust Walk.....maybe in the 3rd Ad? Really glad they finally did this though....could they have aired it during the basketball game a couple of weeks ago on the YES network?

Thank you for finally putting these together. I really like them, especially the John Legend one. It grabbed my attention. Where's the third one?

John Legend one is strong!

Hmmm, was the "Enter" key on your computer broken, or do you just like the "bloggy" look of one giant paragraph?

Brian-- Who cares? We don't need a name change. In fact, I think we could improve our image (at least locally) by not assuming an arrogant and condescending attitude like the one displayed in your post. We could also show off our "prestige" by knowing how to properly use "its" to indicate possession. Oh, and if Penn ever changed its name to Wharton University, I would transfer immediately.

Franklin University of Pennsylvania. "Franklin-Penn". It has been considered before and makes historical sense to recognize "Franklin's University" in such a way. It would not be a great departure from the current name and would provide us with a much more unique brand, enhancing recruiting and gifts.

Who cares that most people don't know the difference between Penn and Penn State? Many, many people do. The university is clearly concerned about their image given all their effort to promote the "Penn" brand. Lack of name recognition is a serious problem for Penn, one that can probably only be solved by instituting a name change. PS: Sorry for any grammatical or spelling errors in this or my previous post. Back-to-back all nighters can really mess you up.

I think these commercials suck. there is so much more of the campus that could be shown in 30 seconds. yes, it's a step in the right direction to actually have commercials to run but there was no excuse to no come up with these so late. how about something better?

University of Connecticut, University of Delaware, University of Florida... University of Pennsylvania. We (Penn students) are "smart" enough to know that of these those four schools, only one is an elite, private, Ivy League institution. Unfortunately, most people cannot make this distinction. Penn's branding and name recognition issues all stem from the name of our school and even Wharton's best marketing geniuses will never be able to fix that. Yale would not be where it is today if it was still called the "Collegiate School" and neither would Princeton if it stuck with the "College of New Jersey." If Penn wants to make a name for itself, it needs to change it's name. Penn University seems the most feasible, but Franklin or Wharton University are also possibilities. The administration and trustees need to stop being stubborn and embrace change. With Penn doing well in selectivity and rankings, now is the time to make that transition. Not only will changing the school's name help solve these branding issues, the simple act of doing so will generate media buzz. The headlines will read "Ivy League School Changes Name." If the University insists on keeping our current name, at least change our domain to penn.edu to at least be consistent. We already own the domain and it's not that hard to make the transition. Just do it.

Although Franklin is cool (although we will then be confused with a smaller Pennsylvania school) and Wharton has great name recognition. Why not do it like Stanford, Wharton, Cornell and everyone else? Creating possibly the last opportunity ever, in this time of very large private donations, to gain the naming rights of an Ivy League institution. Talk of a legacy! You donate a few billion to help us catch the Ivy Big 3 in endowment size and we will spend $100 on new stickers, mugs and sweatshirts. So instead of changing the name to Wharton this seems more in the Wharton spirit.

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