Tuesday, January 10, 2006
When Cool is Uncool
Ryan Smith on Ball State's "Cutting-Edge Cool" Campaign
Ball State University's Daily News carries a column by junior Ryan Smith about Ball State's latest advertising campaign. You've seen the billboards; Mr. Smith is embarassed by them.
Ball State University's Daily News carries a column by junior Ryan Smith about Ball State's latest advertising campaign. You've seen the billboards; Mr. Smith is embarassed by them.
Cutting-edge cool" is a phrase that sounds like it belongs burning in 1980s Hell along with "rad," "totally tubular" and "Where's the beef?"He has some suggestions that might be a bit more appealing. Some are satirical:
Or, how about a slogan that states how we are planning to beautify the campus. Sexy campuses attract students, so how about something like, "We have a nice two-tenths of a mile strip on McKinley Avenue, and everything after that is bumpy, pot hole Hell - but we're working on it."But he really has an affection for his school so he has offered up some serious ideas, too, on what Ball State ought to be emphasizing.
The Princeton Review named Ball State a "Best in the Midwest" university for 2006, one of many schools to receive that award. See? Princeton: That usually means smart, so why isn't that on a billboard somewhere?
Also, the landscape architecture department was ranked as one of the nation's top 10 programs in the 2005 "Almanac of Architecture and Design." Why isn't that blown up and advertised?
Even U.S. News & World Report recognized Ball State as having one of the best undergraduate business programs in the nation, according to the new 2006 rankings - but I'm still looking for that as I drive along I-69.
All of this information can be found on Ball State's "Rankings and Recognitions" Web page, along with dozens of awards Ball State has won. So although wireless is great and offers a plethora of capabilities, until something ground-breaking is being done with that technology, please advertise the plethora of other reasons this is a great university to attend.
