Bozell Managing Principal, Robin Donovan, was quoted a recent issue of the  Omaha World-Herald as an advertising expert giving her opinion about Drake University’s new logo. The article is below or can be found at omaha.com.

DRAKE’S NEW LOGO GETS AN ‘F’

Drake University wanted to break through the noise and the clutter and grab the attention of young people searching for the right college.

So, it picked a symbol of academic mediocrity: “D+”

That got attention from a host of critics, including university faculty and alumni. Publications from Ad Week to the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote critical articles.

Despite, the criticism, Drake says the D+ campaign — The Drake Advantage: your potential + our opportunities — appears to be performing as intended since it launched earlier this year. Tom Delahunt, Drake’s vice president for admission, cited a 63 percent increase in admission inquiries over last summer and more than twice the visits to its admissions web page, even before the campaign garnered national attention.

The campaign highlights what the university has to offer, and the website notes: “When it comes to choosing the college that fits you best, there’s simply no higher grade.”

Yet advertising experts consulted by The World-Herald described the effort as shortsighted, saying the association with mediocrity could cause long-term damage to an institution of higher learning.

“It’ll break though the clutter, but make them more of a laughingstock,” said Robin Donovan, an owner of Omaha-based advertising agency Bozell.

Adam Wagler, an advertising lecturer at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said “D+” could wreck Drake’s brand equity.

“It may be pretty efficient right this second, gets some laughs, gets some web traffic,” Wagler said. “But at the end of the day, it’s an academic institution … and how does something like that serve them?”

The campaign came from a desire by the university to differentiate its recruiting materials from others in the mailbox full of propaganda that deluges prospective college students, Delahunt said.

University officials wanted something eye-catching. Their ad agency, Stamats, of Cedar Rapids, produced a handful of concepts. “D+” got the biggest response from a 921-person sampling of 15- to 17-year-olds, Drake’s target audience.

“61 percent said they would ask for more information,” Delahunt said. “Only 3 percent had a negative response to it.”

“We found a way to get them to read, to get them to want to know more about our university.”

Delahunt pointed out the campaign was aimed at high school students, not adults. The younger generation is different, he said. He has two teenage daughters himself, who, like their peers, spend a great deal of time watching “The Daily Show” and “South Park.”

“They get irony, they get sarcasm,” he said. “That’s the world they live in.”

Faculty members have been some of the harshest critics. Delahunt said if he had to do it over again, he would have informed the faculty of the D+ campaign before its debut.

Whether the campaign is ultimately successful depends on the quality of next year’s incoming class, Delahunt said. He pointed out the average ACT score for incoming Drake students is 27 and the average GPA is 3.7. The university is highly regarded. In the latest U.S. News rankings of Midwest regional universities in which Creighton University was ranked No. 1, Drake is ranked No. 3.

And the campaign is not limited to a big logo of an undesirable grade. It also includes information on Drake’s academic rigor and vocational opportunities, plus life in Des Moines.

Wagler, the UNL advertising lecturer, is from Iowa and aware of Drake’s academic reputation. He was so amused by an article on the D+ campaign he posted it to his Facebook page.

“I thought it sounded like a Far Side cartoon,” he said.

Donovan said large companies have rejected such campaigns outright, no matter how clever. No advertising campaign should create a negative image for the product it is trying to promote.

“People who are in these big businesses know this, so they will never let an agency get away with something like this,” she said.

Donovan recalled an effort in Hartford, Conn., in the 1980s where a company called Wiremold auditioned advertising campaigns for a product that ran wiring under carpet. One agency came up with an idea seemingly edgy and brilliant: Wiremold is going under.

Wiremold officials stopped the presentation, Donovan said, and asked the agency representatives to leave.

“Smart people came up with it,” she said. “But smarter people would have thrown it away.”

That didn’t happen with Drake’s campaign.

“It’s a cheap trick, and sometimes cheap tricks work,” Donovan said. “But I think the potential costs are too high on this one.”