CMD vs. College Football

[HoustonCajun]

It's a good question.

But before you can answer that question, there are more important questions. Who are the commercials for? Are they watching a football game? What would motivate them?

We might be trying to recruit students. We might be trying to recruit athletes. We might be trying to recruit major donors. We might be trying to recruit people to come to our home games.

And after we have decided who the primary audience is, we have to subdivide it. A lot of schools simply want more students, more fans, more donors. The kind of people we bring on board will affect the culture of this place. Personally, I am interested in more of the right kind of people.

But who would those be? More questions.

Personally, I don't want the knuckle-dragging knuckleheads who show up to most University sporting events. On the other hand, nor do I want a bunch of nerds, one of whom might even win the Nobel prize, who have no ability to contribute to the quality of our community, and the quality of our life here.

I find that almost no universities consider these things.

I would suggest several things be included: (1) photos of campus to show the beauty of the university and uniqueness of the on-campus swamp with gators, (2) reference to our achieving R1 status and that we are one of only 2 public universities in Louisiana to achieve that, (3) photos of our athletic facilities now and tie in the on-campus swamp with the football stadium Swamp as well as future facilities expansion, and (4) an appeal to alumni around the country to take pride in and support their university and to prospective students to enroll at UL. All of that should easily be condensed into a 1 minute commercial on UL and let the local, state and national audience know more about The University of Louisiana. I would also reference only once at the beginning our official name, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then every other reference is to LOUISIANA.

[Turbine]

It's a good question.

But before you can answer that question, there are more important questions. Who are the commercials for? Are they watching a football game? What would motivate them?

We might be trying to recruit students. We might be trying to recruit athletes. We might be trying to recruit major donors. We might be trying to recruit people to come to our home games.

And after we have decided who the primary audience is, we have to subdivide it. A lot of schools simply want more students, more fans, more donors. The kind of people we bring on board will affect the culture of this place. Personally, I am interested in more of the right kind of people.

But who would those be? More questions.

Personally, I don't want the knuckle-dragging knuckleheads who show up to most University sporting events. On the other hand, nor do I want a bunch of nerds, one of whom might even win the Nobel prize, who have no ability to contribute to the quality of our community, and the quality of our life here.

I find that almost no universities consider these things.

Good question but no matter who you are marketing to, the same message for more than a few weeks tends to lose effectiveness.

[JamesTheJeweler]

*Goose bumps

[CajunFun]

A couple of insights.

The woman who does the SBC commercials, sells the commercial by her composure & presentation. 'Rising' is nice, but she makes the commercial. (BTW, I did an Internet search, couldn't find out anything about her.)

South Al's commercial was just their SGA Prez talking about the university... and it was very effective. Low cost, less work, but it was convincing.

[ZoomZoom]

A couple of insights.

The woman who does the SBC commercials, sells the commercial by her composure & presentation. 'Rising' is nice, but she makes the commercial. (BTW, I did an Internet search, couldn't find out anything about her.)

South Al's commercial was just their SGA Prez talking about the university... and it was very effective. Low cost, less work, but it was convincing.

And their preferred athletic branding, South, was on the back wall.

[Boomer]

And their preferred athletic branding, South, was on the back wall.

….Fun how do we get the state to get LOUISIANA? We get the National name but no doubt hatred keeps the rest to double L us!

[CajunFun]

….Fun how do we get the state to get LOUISIANA? We get the National name but no doubt hatred keeps the rest to double L us!

Why do we care?

I walked across campus a couple of days ago, hardly recognized it. We are now a major college, and the campus looks it. A couple of years ago, with the stroke of a pen, we grew from 154 acres to 541, gaining a new health sciences building and another parking garage... our 4th, and we need it because that's how fast we're growing. And we haven't even started breaking ground on other buildings that are coming down the pipe.

We reached R2. We have surpassed LSU in research funding, and will almost definitely surpass Tulane— including their med school— in 3-4 years. We are very close to SREB Doc1, which should greatly increase our state funding. We have 5 research parks, one of which is adding two world-class medical centers, at a cost of over $80M. We have more students who want to come here than we can handle (remember, we had to rent out some local hotels), all while college enrollment is shrinking across the country. We are building out our athletics campus, with facilities that already surpass some P5 schools. We have a football coach who is taking us to the next level, maybe further, who is likely to invest a career here (reminds me of back when LSU quietly approached Robe, and he politely declined... how much money did he turn down?) We have other teams that regularly put us in the Top 25, and the trend has been upward for the last 3 decades.

49 states calls us 'Louisiana.' Why do we give a tinker's dam what the schools in this state call us?

They resent us. They have cause. CMD says it well, "It's been us against everybody... It's our belief, and our effort, and our discipline, against everybody, everywhere... and I'll fight 'em all with this team. Because this group has what it takes."

So when they call us 'ULL,' 'Lafayette,' or even 'USL,' we should smile. We should feel like world-beaters.

Because it certainly seems like that's where we're headed.

[cajun4life]

Why do we care?

I walked across campus a couple of days ago, hardly recognized it. We are now a major college, and the campus looks it. A couple of years ago, with the stroke of a pen, we grew from 154 acres to 541, gaining a new health sciences building and another parking garage... our 4th, and we need it because that's how fast we're growing. And we haven't even started breaking ground on other buildings that are coming down the pipe.

We reached R2. We have surpassed LSU in research funding, and will almost definitely surpass Tulane— including their med school— in 3-4 years. We are very close to SREB Doc1, which should greatly increase our state funding. We have 5 research parks, one of which is adding two world-class medical centers, at a cost of over $80M. We have more students who want to come here than we can handle (remember, we had to rent out some local hotels), all while college enrollment is shrinking across the country. We are building out our athletics campus, with facilities that already surpass some P5 schools. We have a football coach who is taking us to the next level, maybe further, who is likely to invest a career here (reminds me of back when LSU quietly approached Robe, and he politely declined... how much money did he turn down?) We have other teams that regularly put us in the Top 25, and the trend has been upward for the last 3 decades.

49 states calls us 'Louisiana.' Why do we give a tinker's dam what the schools in this state call us?

They resent us. They have cause. CMD says it well, "It's been us against everybody... It's our belief, and our effort, and our discipline, against everybody, everywhere... and I'll fight 'em all with this team. Because this group has what it takes."

So when they call us 'ULL,' 'Lafayette,' or even 'USL,' we should smile. We should feel like world-beaters.

Because it certainly seems like that's where we're headed.

I absolutely see tangible evidence of improvement as a university.

Where is this growth that we are talking about? Undergrad student growth is pretty stagnant.

Graduate program growth is increasing, which is huge for our reputation as a university.

I just don’t see the growth.

[CajunFun]

I absolutely see tangible evidence of improvement as a university.

Where is this growth that we are talking about? Undergrad student growth is pretty stagnant.

Graduate program growth is increasing, which is huge for our reputation as a university.

I just don’t see the growth.

Just because we aren't as big as LSU, it's still growth. That's probably not what you meant, but sometimes it seems like that's all people here focus on. It's always some complaint, some deficiency, some failure of recognition by our own people.

I mentioned it a couple of months back: we have gone through rising selective admissions, we have withstood the creation of 9 community college campuses in the region, the vo-tech schools have tripled their enrollment over the past decade...

And yet, the number of HS valedictorians at UL is still rising, freshman ACTs & GPAs are going up, and our overall numbers are— yes— slowly increasing. And again, that's all happening while enrollments are shrinking across the country.

We are one of the two largest schools in a state that refuses to provide adequate funding to higher education. Look at the long, long, long list of successes I mentioned, of all the Ws UL is putting up. Sometimes I feel like UL is batting .400, and all people can do is complain because 60% of the time we are aren't getting a hit.

People are complaining because the rest of the state won't call us Louisiana, while too many of our own people— people who claim to be fans— ignore the fact that we have become Louisiana.

Sorry to vent, but Sheesh.

[ZoomZoom]

Why do we care?

I walked across campus a couple of days ago, hardly recognized it. We are now a major college, and the campus looks it. A couple of years ago, with the stroke of a pen, we grew from 154 acres to 541, gaining a new health sciences building and another parking garage... our 4th, and we need it because that's how fast we're growing. And we haven't even started breaking ground on other buildings that are coming down the pipe.

We reached R2. We have surpassed LSU in research funding, and will almost definitely surpass Tulane— including their med school— in 3-4 years. We are very close to SREB Doc1, which should greatly increase our state funding. We have 5 research parks, one of which is adding two world-class medical centers, at a cost of over $80M. We have more students who want to come here than we can handle (remember, we had to rent out some local hotels), all while college enrollment is shrinking across the country. We are building out our athletics campus, with facilities that already surpass some P5 schools. We have a football coach who is taking us to the next level, maybe further, who is likely to invest a career here (reminds me of back when LSU quietly approached Robe, and he politely declined... how much money did he turn down?) We have other teams that regularly put us in the Top 25, and the trend has been upward for the last 3 decades.

49 states calls us 'Louisiana.' Why do we give a tinker's dam what the schools in this state call us?

They resent us. They have cause. CMD says it well, "It's been us against everybody... It's our belief, and our effort, and our discipline, against everybody, everywhere... and I'll fight 'em all with this team. Because this group has what it takes."

So when they call us 'ULL,' 'Lafayette,' or even 'USL,' we should smile. We should feel like world-beaters.

Because it certainly seems like that's where we're headed.

Tell that to the leaders at MH.

[JamesTheJeweler]

Why do we care?

I walked across campus a couple of days ago, hardly recognized it. We are now a major college, and the campus looks it. A couple of years ago, with the stroke of a pen, we grew from 154 acres to 541, gaining a new health sciences building and another parking garage... our 4th, and we need it because that's how fast we're growing. And we haven't even started breaking ground on other buildings that are coming down the pipe.

We reached R2. We have surpassed LSU in research funding, and will almost definitely surpass Tulane— including their med school— in 3-4 years. We are very close to SREB Doc1, which should greatly increase our state funding. We have 5 research parks, one of which is adding two world-class medical centers, at a cost of over $80M. We have more students who want to come here than we can handle (remember, we had to rent out some local hotels), all while college enrollment is shrinking across the country. We are building out our athletics campus, with facilities that already surpass some P5 schools. We have a football coach who is taking us to the next level, maybe further, who is likely to invest a career here (reminds me of back when LSU quietly approached Robe, and he politely declined... how much money did he turn down?) We have other teams that regularly put us in the Top 25, and the trend has been upward for the last 3 decades.

49 states calls us 'Louisiana.' Why do we give a tinker's dam what the schools in this state call us?

They resent us. They have cause. CMD says it well, "It's been us against everybody... It's our belief, and our effort, and our discipline, against everybody, everywhere... and I'll fight 'em all with this team. Because this group has what it takes."

So when they call us 'ULL,' 'Lafayette,' or even 'USL,' we should smile. We should feel like world-beaters.

Because it certainly seems like that's where we're headed.

I absolutely love your posts Fun! I Would love to have lunch with you one day and pick your brain.

[HoustonCajun]

Why do we care?

I walked across campus a couple of days ago, hardly recognized it. We are now a major college, and the campus looks it. A couple of years ago, with the stroke of a pen, we grew from 154 acres to 541, gaining a new health sciences building and another parking garage... our 4th, and we need it because that's how fast we're growing. And we haven't even started breaking ground on other buildings that are coming down the pipe.

We reached R2. We have surpassed LSU in research funding, and will almost definitely surpass Tulane— including their med school— in 3-4 years. We are very close to SREB Doc1, which should greatly increase our state funding. We have 5 research parks, one of which is adding two world-class medical centers, at a cost of over $80M. We have more students who want to come here than we can handle (remember, we had to rent out some local hotels), all while college enrollment is shrinking across the country. We are building out our athletics campus, with facilities that already surpass some P5 schools. We have a football coach who is taking us to the next level, maybe further, who is likely to invest a career here (reminds me of back when LSU quietly approached Robe, and he politely declined... how much money did he turn down?) We have other teams that regularly put us in the Top 25, and the trend has been upward for the last 3 decades.

49 states calls us 'Louisiana.' Why do we give a tinker's dam what the schools in this state call us?

They resent us. They have cause. CMD says it well, "It's been us against everybody... It's our belief, and our effort, and our discipline, against everybody, everywhere... and I'll fight 'em all with this team. Because this group has what it takes."

So when they call us 'ULL,' 'Lafayette,' or even 'USL,' we should smile. We should feel like world-beaters.

Because it certainly seems like that's where we're headed.

Didn't we reach R1?