Think: Award-winning commercial
Think. Specifically, think about space.
That was the goal of Utah State University’s public relations and marketing department when it created a commercial about USU’s space program. The 60-second ad made people think – enough to win the 2003 “Best Campus TV Commercial Contest.”
The contest, sponsored by Carnegie Communications, a market research firm, awarded USU first place last month in New York City.
Elizabeth Scarborough, Carnegie’s vice president of strategic marketing, called USU’s “Space” the “most compelling and powerful” of all the commercials.
“It is a bold and aggressive marketing statement that truly differentiates Utah State from every other university,” Scarborough said.
USU’s creative media director in the public relations and marketing office, Charles Thompson, said the space advertising started as a billboard campaign the summer of 2003. In December, senior Steven von Niederhausern saw one of USU’s billboards in the Salt Lake City International Airport and thought, “Why couldn’t there be a commercial, too?”
The billboards – 10 of which were placed in the airport for four months – are part of a three-year campaign to increase awareness of USU’s strengths. Thompson said last summer the department decided to focus on space during 2003-04, water in 2004-05 and education during the final and third year.
In just 19 days, “Space” was made in December. The ad has no spoken words, its music was composed by a USU graduate and a single printed sentence runs across the screen: “Utah State students send more experiments into space than any other university in the world.”
John DeVilbiss, executive director of public relations and marketing at USU, said “Space” competed with commercials from schools like Ohio State, North Carolina State and Wake Forest.
“I was sweating,” he said when he saw the other schools’ commercials.
As part of the grand prize, four USU staff members were recognized at Carnegie’s sixth annual Conference on Marketing Innovations in Puerto Rico during the first week of February.
“We had a good time swinging through the jungles,” DeVilbiss said of his time in Puerto Rico.
Thompson said he and von Niederhausern, a broadcast journalism major with an emphasis in electronic media, spent hundreds of hours working on the commercial. There are 30 frames per second of the commercial: 1,800 total.
“We spent a lot of time matching and piecing video clips and music together to create an emotional appeal for viewers,” von Niederhausern said.
DeVilbiss said during those 19 days in December he’d come down on weekends and late at night and see Thompson and von Niederhausern “working away.”
DeVilbiss said the university is using the commercial now for development and recruiting purposes.
“We’re going to put our best foot forward,” Thompson said. “This commercial is very high-tech – a big departure from cows and plows.”
But, despite the commercial’s award-winning quality, DeVilbiss said, it only cost USU $4,500 to make. Anywhere else, it would cost more than $30,000, he said.
“We have an advantage other corporations and companies don’t have,” DeVilbiss said. “We have a huge human resource base.”
The music used for the commercial would have cost the most, DeVilbiss said, but USU graduate Russell Dixon agreed to create the music for a much lower cost.
Special footage of orbiting satellites and shuttles was provided by the Space Dynamics Laboratory and NASA, DeVilbiss said.
“We’ve proven there are wonderful resources at a university that can and should be taped,” DeVilbiss said. “By doing so we’ve saved a lot of money. We don’t need to go to California to dig for gold when it’s in our own backyard.”
Thompson said he and von Niederhausern – among others – are working on next year’s water campaign. And, after the success of this year, a commercial will definitely be made.
USU’s water research is expansive, he said, with its involvement reaching as far as the Middle East and Central America.
“We’ve had Texas come to Utah asking for assistance [with water],” DeVilbiss said.
The 2005-06 education focus will emphasize the university’s Center for Persons with Disabilities, Thompson said.
“We’re 45th in the nation [for education],” DeVilbiss said. “We know no one in Utah or the region who’s better.”
“Space” can be seen at www.usu.edu/space and the space billboards are still on display on the Taggart Student Center’s first floor.
-emilieholmes@cc.usu.edu