UA officials say their new slogan is 'world-class'

By Aaron Mackey

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Billboard samples

The UA has created several signs that showcase premier research and academic programs with puns and other wordplay in parentheses.

A few examples:

• We developed Pima cotton (no sweat)

• Global leader in climate change research (gives you a warm feeling)

• No. 1 entrepreneurship program (learn to mind your own business)

DID YOU KNOW

The University of Arizona began using the slogan "Arizona's First University" in 2005.

The slogan was the first campuswide effort to consistently define the UA, and at the time it was hailed as a way to increase understanding of the university's strengths.

Source: University of Arizona and Arizona Daily Star archives

While campus officials haven't lost their sense of history, the UA's "Arizona's First University" slogan has become an artifact of the past.

As brand management becomes an integral part of the University of Arizona's marketing strategies, officials have tweaked the campuswide calling card to "Arizona's World-Class University" in an attempt to reflect the institution's academic and research prowess.

Rather than holding a formal kickoff for the new phrase, officials will begin to replace old signs and update marketing materials in the coming weeks.

And while the slogan shift might be subtle, another new UA marketing campaign is anything but.

The university put up 15 billboards in the Phoenix area earlier this month touting its highly ranked programs with lighthearted messages while also exhorting passers-by to "Head South, Move Ahead."

The billboards, which will rotate through 60 locations in the Phoenix area in the coming months, sit along some of the busiest stretches of Interstate 10 and other major roadways.

The billboards stand in Arizona State University's backyard and aren't sitting well with officials there. But UA officials say they're not trying to pick a fight with the Phoenix institution. They say the purpose of the billboards is to tell people about the UA's achievements.

"We have a strong alumni base in Phoenix, and it's a growing area," said John Brown, a spokesman for the UA Foundation, which funded the campaign. "We want to remind them that we're here and what we're doing."

The signs in Phoenix build upon a national campaign that the UA began earlier this year in San Diego and Chicago. In those cities, the signs told people to "Head West" or "Head East" to move ahead.

Using $250,000 from the foundation, the UA was able to buy space on about 40 billboards in Phoenix, while the other 20 locations were donated by Karl Eller, a UA alumnus and billboard-advertising magnate.

Most of the signs highlight a specific facet of the UA with wordplay, such as one that says, "We led a NASA mission to Mars (nothing's alien to us)."

Another sign touts UA research that has helped advance the dairy industry, saying, "Producing the most productive milk cows (udderly amazing)."

Besides trying to stoke alumni enthusiasm and draw future students, the billboards attempt to educate the public about the UA's role in the state, said Stephen MacCarthy, the university's vice president for external relations.

"Whether it's parents or prospective students, voters or potential supporters, it's important for all kind of reasons that they be aware of what's happening here," he said.

And as for the "Head South, Move Ahead" signs, they're not a dig at ASU, Brown said.

"The play on words is about a college education helping you move ahead," he said.

But when asked about the "Head South, Move Ahead" billboard, Terri Shafer, ASU's vice president for marketing strategic communications, was unimpressed.

"They used the same slogan on a billboard near San Diego State University in California. As far we can tell, San Diego State is still in business," she wrote in an e-mail.

Shafer also critiqued the UA's new "world-class" slogan, saying it was weak and unoriginal.

"Making 'world-class' your primary marketing claim would earn you an F in Marketing 101," she wrote. "There are literally hundreds of colleges and universities that say they're world-class. It's a meaningless term with no accepted measurement standard."

Shafer said ASU doesn't have a single tag line and uses several themes and messages to convey what officials there call their mission as a "New American University."

MacCarthy took ASU's strong reaction to the billboards as a good sign.

"If they don't like it, we must have done something right," he said.

Work on the new slogan began after the UA got anecdotal and survey evidence that showed "Arizona's First University" hadn't caught on.

Unveiled three years ago as a way to market the UA, the slogan met with tepid reviews. Additionally, a survey of state residents showed many people weren't sure what it meant.

"It didn't resonate very well," MacCarthy said. "But what kept coming up in the survey that we did is that the UA is all about quality."

As UA officials kicked around ideas about a new slogan, the term "world-class" kept coming up as a way to describe programs such as astronomy, medicine and business.

"It just sort of suddenly dawned on us," MacCarthy said of using the term. "Isn't that what we are and what we should be?"

Though the slogan will appear in future television commercials and other external promotions and advertisements, the catchphrase also is geared toward generating a buzz on campus.

"We want to get people at the UA excited, and this is a way for people in all the programs on campus to look at how they really are separated from other campuses for what they do," MacCarthy said.