Pacific Index

Issue date: 5/9/08 Section: Opinion

Which is more important: fresh-cut grass or actually being able to hear your professor lecture?

Just Do It. Marketing divisions of Nike have materialized a brand of sporting gear into three words. It is a command and a motivator. This advertisement makes us think of Tiger Woods and his swoosh smile. Woods is one of the loyal spokesmen for Nike. From all angles Nike has created a global and recognizable brand.



Coco-Cola and Pepsi have had multi-million dollar promotion campaigns. With competing spokes-models like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, all cola drinkers had to become loyal to either their taste buds or their favorite starlet. These campaigns have depleted the product itself and relies more on the brand image.



While the Got Milk? campaign uses a variety of models, musicians, politicians and actors, it focuses on an image: the milk mustache. The image is tattooed into the brains of consumers just as annoying jingles are from radio and television advertisements. I think most people can recite the phone number to at least one company without even knowing what they sell. Got Milk? ads do not promote a cola beverage. Milk is healthy to the body. The ads are selling education, not a product. Awareness and truth about milk 'doing the body good,' strengthen bones and losing weight are all subcategories of the Got Milk? campaign.



Pacific University is in the beginning stages of a marketing campaign. Pacific doesn't have a current tag line or image to prove that the institution is better than its competition. Pacific needs a strong advertisement so maybe Portlanders can even recognize the university and will nod their heads when the town of Forest Grove is mentioned.



What the Marketing and Communications Team is tasked with is creating some kind of Just Do It campaign based around the rich heritage and values the university has. This is a difficult assignment because how can emotions be conveyed in an image or tag line?



Pacific isn't a nationally recognized university. It isn't even well known in Oregon. It will never be Stanford, Yale, Harvard or Cornell. Pacific's location hinders this. The rural atmosphere, although important to the university, isn't marketable to city folk. Few prospective college students want to be secluded on a campus 30 miles from a city. Within the next couple years though, Forest Grove could be considered a suburb of Portland, with the rapid growth of the surrounding area. How do you market corn fields to a SoCal economics major?

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