The University of Baltimore doesn?t need to advertise itself: The school is letting its students do it for it.
New Web videos featuring unscripted interviews with UB students, new billboards, and TV and mass transit advertising are all part of the next phase of the university?s ad campaign, which launches today.
The University of Baltimore?s Web site, www.ubalt.edu, now includes videos with students about their courses of study, as well as video profiles of various departments and interviews with top professors on current events.
It?s the next evolution in a campaign crafted by the school and public relations firm Profiles Inc. to replace the typical slick university sales pitch with honest, unscripted interviews with students, said Peter Toran, vice president of university relations.
“One of the things universities do is talk a lot about themselves,” Toran said. “Everyone else [in business] talks about their customers. We wanted to turn that around.”
The videos began in the spring of 2006 with a series of Web spots following UB student Natalie Minor over a period of weeks. Later series followed other students, focusing more on the program each was enrolled in.
Over those semesters, the videos have narrowed the focus from a student?s whole life to the classroom setting itself, said Amy Elias, president of Profiles.
“We?ve been getting closer and closer to UB,” Elias said. “Now we see the classroom through their eyes, the things that the professors do.”
Toran admits that the decision to follow a student?s life and to allow students to speak unscripted and unedited was a risky one. The student chosen could have failed a class or been forced to take the semester off for personal reasons. But the university has left the videos alone, even opting not to correct a recent misstatement by a student who said this fall was the first year UB accepted freshmen ? it?s actually the first time since the 1970s.
“It?s funny, my concern now is that we don?t get too slick,” Toran said. “If we were in a typical ad agency, we?d have ?airbrushed? that out.”
Toran said the original video of Minor generated about 1,000 to 1,500 hits when new installments went up. While the exact impact of the campaign isn?t clear, students are watching.
When the university marketing team and Profiles approached one classroom of students about participating in the video, the response was enthusiastic, said Gigi Boam, associate director of university relations.
“Almost to a student, they would say, ?Oh yes, we?ve seen the videos,? ” Boam said.
More information
To check out the University of Baltimore?s new Web videos, featuring unscripted interviews with students, profiles of the university?s programs and professors weighing in on the latest news, visit www.ubalt.edu.
