Colorado Mesa U/Featherstone U ad campaign skewers focus on prestige

Parents Forum
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Wasn’t sure where to post this since it’s kind of a meta-commentary about a lot of the things that regularly come up on these fora, but Colorado Mesa University—one of the many effectively open-admissions colleges that gets little to no love here on CC—just dropped a new ad campaign that’s making waves in the higher-ed community: A fake website for hyper-elite Featherstone University.

It’s making waves in the higher-ed community, with the Chronicle of Higher Education reporting that some marketers have praised it, but a number of people, especially those associated with highly selective universities, think it’s misguided or even dangerous (paywalled, sorry).

But yeah, it pretty explicitly skewers the sort of focus on prestige and the description of some universities as “elite” (with the implication that every other university is the opposite, maybe the dregs or somesuch) that you see reasonably often here on CC. Since that’s what this ad campaign is taking direct aim at, I thought it might be interesting to drop this here to get reactions to the ad campaign, and maybe especially from those who argue that a focus on hyperselectives and/or prestigious colleges is optimal for students and their families.

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I don’t think it’s taking aim at the mega selectives as much as it is taking aim at the “we teach life skills to upper income kids who can’t get into their state flagship”. I mean- does anyone think that fencing and being good-looking is going to get you into Cal Tech?

I wish they’d spend more time on “this is what we teach” and a little less time on “we care about who you are” type of stuff. But certainly can’t fault the production values or the casting!

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I LOL’d at the “FU” and found the ad campaign very funny. I can see how the message would be effective for Colorado Mesa’s target student. I bet this is going to be a huge win for the school’s marketing team.

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I really liked it!!

It had a target audience- and I think this works well with that target.
I lol’ed a few times and thought it was very clever.

I do find that it is a bit telling that even though FU university :wink: did not mention any school in particular- it struck a nerve with some specific ones.
If that satire hits to close to home and makes them feel uncomfortable- perhaps the messaging and image of those ‘elite’ schools need to be mended?!
If it doesn’t bother them- then they are ok with that image and should carry on!!!

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Including some that surprised me, like the University of Oregon, where the administration accused the ad campaign of impugning “a whole sector”.

But really, of all the colleges out there that Colorado Mesa’s ad campaign was satirizing, Oregon wouldn’t have been on any list I’d’ve come up with. Weird that they of all universities got defensive at it.

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I can’t read the paywalled article. What specifically are universities saying when they criticize the ad as “misguided or even dangerous”?

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In a nutshell, that we’re in a period of reduced faith in higher education as a whole and increasing attacks on the higher-ed sector from various political angles, and so an ad campaign like this one merely offers ammunition to higher-ed’s opponents.

There are also claims that the satire is misguided, and it ignores the important social good that hyperselective/highly-endowed universities do—but at least in the article’s reporting, that one seemed secondary.

ETA: I’m in a bit of a rush at the moment, but I’ll try to come back to this later today to add selected quotes from the article to the thread, if nobody does so before I can.

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I agree that higher ed is under attack but disagree that this ad adds to that in any way. It’s obviously meant to be lighthearted and they aren’t targeting the same population of students at all.

But, part of what makes a caricature like this work is that there are some kernels of truth. I had someone ask me what my daddy did for a living on a college tour. It was such a turn off that I opted not to apply and the application was already done (back in the stone ages when essays were typewritten).

My D was totally turned off on a tour where every other word from the tour guide was about this big donor or that big donor and all the famous alumni. The country club vibe is actually alive and well at some schools, even today.

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I also agree that higher ed is under attack- which is why I wish Mesa had focused on their academic offerings, and not just “we don’t care who your daddy is”. Fun ad, they must have had a blast making it.

I believe that most people (even the fervently “anti-university/too elite/bastions of liberalism” want a cure (or more likely, hundreds of different cures) for various cancers. I believe that most people- even the ones screaming that climate change is a fake- would rather NOT have to have their shoreline home swept away by a “once in a hundred year” storm which seems to arrive every ten years or so. And most people don’t want our air traffic control system or electrical grid or banking system or hospital operating rooms shut down willy nilly due to cyber attacks which have become increasingly sophisticated.

Sure, there’s a lone researcher out there toiling away in his or her garage who may make progress on some of these issues. But even the folks shouting that college is for losers and we should defund Berkeley because it is too radical and should be shut down– understand on some level that allowing universities to do what they do is ultimately going to help people. Even people like them who don’t believe in “book larning”. As emotionally appealing as it is, we aren’t seeing big, inventive, ground breaking research coming out of the “We aren’t politically correct and we don’t take government money” colleges. Are VC’s lining up to fund the startups coming out of Liberty or Hillsdale?

Not every student is going to end up winning a Nobel in medicine and that’s just fine also. So if Mesa wants to emphasize its cred in training occupational therapists and nurses- terrific. We need those also. But breaking the anti-higher ed mindset is going to take a lot more than poking fun at rich people. It’s like the old saw- there are no atheists in foxholes. And I’m observing more and more that all the people who “hate” elite educational institutions and the people who work there, study there, fund things- all seem to end up at their affiliated hospitals when they have a scary diagnosis. People love to hate Harvard- but they sure love the neurology department at Mass General.

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What’s dangerous ? They are saying we are real - we are not tony, wealthy, stuck up.

If someone is offended they are over thinking.

Know your audience.

It’s not the Princeton kid.

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As promised, selected parts of the paywalled Chronicle article:

…
The “Welcome to Featherstone” marketing campaign and accompanying video have drawn praise for boldness and, well, ruffled some feathers. John Marshall, Colorado Mesa’s president, said starting a conversation was the goal.

“A lot of universities are caught up in this game where it’s, we’re trying to be Harvard-like or something. Man, I’m not interested in that at all,” Marshall said. “If you have an endowment that you could scholarship every single kid twice over, and you still charge $100,000, there’s only one reason for that, and it’s to keep people out. And what we’re trying to do is fundamentally something different.”
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“If it’s done badly, it feels smug, but if it’s done well, it builds trust and transparency,” said [Mallory] Willsea, a higher-education consultant and host of the Higher Ed Pulse podcast. “We just don’t see satire and humor very often within higher-ed marketing. So the risk is, you know, it’s emotional, but it keeps you engaged.”

Others like Teresa Valerio Parrot, principal at TVP Communications, believe the Featherstone University messaging emphasized a harmful trope, especially as some conservative politicians are already inclined to cut colleges’ funding. “I am not a fan of any institution punching at any other sector of higher education,” Parrot said. “This is a time for higher education to come together and to talk about how it benefits our students and it benefits society, rather than to take on each other in the public sphere.”
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An ad like this, Parrot added, can also send the wrong message to prospective students. “If they create this mindset that we are the only one for you, or it’s us versus them, then where do those students go next to further their education?”

Carol Keese, vice president for university communications at the University of Oregon, said going after the nation’s most prominent universities, as the Featherstone campaign tried to do, is wrongheaded. Those institutions are “overwhelmingly” doing things that benefit Americans — through cancer research, agricultural research, and mental-health research, Keese said. And those colleges also succeed at uplifting their students. “Higher education is the biggest engine for social mobility the world has ever seen,” she said. “It is not an engine that reproduces wealth and privilege to the exclusion of everything else.”

While the sector has “serious work to do” to reframe its own value proposition, Keese said she didn’t think a caricature was the way. “CMU used the moment to ridicule a whole sector, and kind of ironically, in doing so, discount both its own value and the value of the degree that the students they’re supposedly talking to are seeking.”

But Leilani Domingo, Colorado Mesa’s student-body president, believes the point of the campaign is to get attention from students, and that’s exactly what it’s doing.

“That mindset that prestige equals quality is often what leaves students like me behind,” said Domingo, who appears in the ad. “I come from a low-income family, first generation, student of color who just needed someone to believe in them, and CMU believed in me … this campaign is truly what that’s about.”
…

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Colorado Mesa University–The Harvard of Western Colorado.

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NOOO! They don’t want to be the Harvard of anything! Harvard is where rich dumb people go who get in because of who their families are! Mesa is where you go if you want a college which cares about YOU.

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Yes, but it’s always hip to say you are the Harvard of whereer.

I know someone who refers to Murray State as the Harvard of Kentucky - and I’m sure the two schools share zero similarity.

But Harvard is the gold standard of college - regardless of what your school’s ethos is…

I like @Publisher narrative and I can’t believe there’s a thread on a harmless,fun, at first confusing ad campaign.

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image
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Tee-shirts don’t lie.

(Love the ad!)

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So are you suggesting that I misread the article that I didn’t read ?

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It is the poster child. I would disagree with it being the gold standard. :grin:

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I think this ad is fantastic and will totally get the attention of their target audience. Kudos to the marketing team that came up with this. :laughing:

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I think the ad is really creative, witty, and is probably looking to attract applicants who do NOT want a campus culture/vibe that is like FU.

In my opinion, every college markets itself. HOW they market themselves to their potential customers (aka applicants/students + those students’ parents/guardians) will vary depending on what the message is that they want to relay, what TYPE of student(s) they want to attract, etc.

So for a student who WANTS to hob nob with a different crowd than those who would attend Colorado Mesa U? Guess what? They won’t apply to Colorado Mesa U. Maybe those kids WOULD be happier at an FU type of place.

There’s many flavors of ice cream. Everybody can have their favorite flavor, eat their fill of it, and leave the ice cream shop happy and satisfied. Just because the person at the table next to you at Baskin & Robbins is eating a different flavor than you are doesn’t mean that the other person liking another flavor is dangerous.

Just like somebody wanting to attend Colorado Mesa U vs somewhere else doesn’t mean anything, really. So your next door neighbor’s kid is applying to all of the top 20/top 30 colleges while your kid will be attending an in state university. Big deal. Different flavors of ice cream. Doesn’t mean that one flavor is bad or worse than another.

But is the ad campaign dangerous? No. Not at all.

If one is offended by the ad, then that individual might not be the target audience.

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I think it’s magnificent.

FU. Brilliant!

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