It's been an interesting past couple of days at the Harvard of the West Plains, Eastern Washington University. First, we had this huge budget crisis with the students which resulted in me going into uber-collegiate journalist mode.
Which basically means I put a dress shirt on for the first time in a year.
And then throw on classes, tests, papers and the normal hoops and firepits and I think I've had exactly three wonderful hours of sleep in the last 48 hours.
But, like, isn't this the normal college thing to do? I think that colleges get it all wrong when they market their school. Brochures usually have happy professors, lush green campuses (which by the way, is under snow during five months out of the year in Washington) and smiling students in co-ed dorm rooms.
Come on, that's fine if you're trying to sell a retirement community room to someone. Here's what schools should really being using to market themselves.
What would a school do with a legendary rock band? Have them be your spokesmen. Who else would be better suited to talk about partying everynight, getting sleep deprived, probably doing some sort of nasty drug and then live to tell about it?
That's right. Rock Stars.
So Universities, before you spend millions of dollars on a marketing campaign that's about as interesting as Carson Daly's late night show, you might want to look into marketing the fact that most college students develop all their health problems and addictions while in school.
I mean who wouldn't want to go to your institution then?
isn't that the truth? I personally have a hard time believing that WSU can even put together a sports team every year. Imagine yourself, a star athlete out of the SoCal area. You come to Pullman. Foot of snow. Freezing cold. Nearest glimpse of civilization an hour away (I don't consider Moscow civilization, merely a backwoods settlement).
ReplyDeleteShow these athletes the party reputation of Wazzu. That'll lure 'em in