December 6, 2007
Colleges Create Offbeat Videos to Try to Build Web Buzz
These days colleges’ PR offices are creating more and more videos to promote campus events and get their institution’s name out. And some have tried to adopt the lighthearted or edgy tone that seems most popular on YouTube.
The collegewebeditor blog has been tracking such efforts, and today they point out an unusual holiday video created by the University of Maryland at College Park.
Connie Chung, an alumnus of the university, makes a cameo appearance, but the star is the college’s mascot, Testudo, leading students and staff members from across campus to gather for a holiday photo. The overall feel seems something out of a Disney film, and somehow it seems long, even though it’s only two minutes. It’s too soon to tell whether it will be the next big viral video — so far the version on YouTube has only been viewed a couple hundred times.
Last month, the blog featured a roundup of quirky promotional videos featuring college presidents, highlighting various presidents jumping out of planes, answering questions on a late-night TV show, or riding a motorcycle. None of those have been blockbusters either, though.
Know of a similarly offbeat university video? Please let us know about it in the comments section. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Thursday December 6, 2007 | Permalink |Comments
Commenting is closed for this article.
Previous: Colleges Adopt Tough Approach to Copyright Violations
Next: RIAA Sends Out Its December Piracy Notices
I work at a large university. The amount of time, energy, people and resources that goes into making a pr video like this would amaze you. I’m sure we could go to College Park and find a building that was falling a part, leaking or in need of a new computer lab, if not several. The 21st Century is the Age of Smoke and Mirrors and even state schools are jumping on the band wagon. It is almost tragic.
— dsm Dec 6, 06:48 PM #
I think Plato anticipated this development in higher education when he had Socrates take poison.
— S. Britchky Dec 7, 02:59 AM #
Frostburg State University (also a part of the University System of Maryland) organized a YouTube contest for students and alumni this past spring. Here is one of the more interesting submissions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLTv7qvsThQ. The student created it with photo stills and used music by his brother, who is a DJ.
— B. Ramspott Dec 7, 08:15 AM #
Thanks for the mention!
To access easily all my archived posts about the higher ed videos, you can go to www.higheredtv.com.
— Karine Joly - collegewebeditor.com Dec 7, 09:11 AM #
Our video of the Vassar quidditch team practicing for the World Cup at Middlebury has gotten over 80,000 hits in three weeks:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jew6EyNvBfI
— Julia Van Develder Dec 7, 09:28 AM #
Princeton University’s New Media Center put together a promotional video that was played at the end of the New Media Consortium’s 2007 conference promoting the 2008 conference which will be held there. It has a ‘24’ theme.
WMV – http://media.nmc.org/2008/06/princeton.wmv
Quicktime – http://media.nmc.org/2008/06/princeton.mov
— I Come Anon Dec 7, 09:40 AM #
What seems to be lost in the occasional cynicism is the original intent of the holiday greeting: President and Mrs. Mote’s sincere desire to thank members of the University of Maryland family – both nearby and afar – for their committed work and support and for their passion in our pursuit of excellence. As it has evolved, the current technological environment somehow suggests that mailing a greeting card to millions of people around the world doesn’t seem to be the most efficient or the best use of very limited dollars.
Over the past couple of years, we have gotten great response from our UM family, who often take the opportunity to pass it along to their friends and relatives.
Millree Williams
Director of University Communications
University of Maryland, College Park
— Millree Williams Dec 7, 12:44 PM #
As part of the University of Maryland team that produced this holiday card, I think it’s important that I share some background and give you a true sense of the results. This video was created for President Dan Mote as his annual holiday card to our University of Maryland family. It was sent to about 200,000 members of the community: students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, etc, with encouragement for them to pass it on. We also featured the holiday card (along with some bonus features) on our homepage at www.umd.edu. YouTube was just one of the many tools we used to spread the card. Within the first five days, we’ve received close to 60,000 page views and 2,200 people have forwarded the card. We have seen page views from 62 countries, with the majority coming from Germany, Taiwan and China. Although the page views and reach are impressive, what’s most gratifying is the goodwill and pride that this card has generated. We’ve received hundreds of written emails to the President, and almost all of them tell us how proud they are to be a Terp.
Deborah M. Wiltrout
Director, University Marketing
University of Maryland
— Deborah Wiltrout Dec 7, 01:01 PM #
We created a video to
promote our online career training courses for our 600 college and university partners. The goal was to promote interest in two of our newer online career tracks. Although the video has had a number of views, translating those views into enrollments is still the challenge. Interested parties can view the video at this URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zdAGP7hO2M
Daryl Clark
Director of Online Marketing
Gatlin Education Services
— Daryl Clark Dec 10, 04:59 PM #
We at Yavapai College Library have planned a whole series of entertaining videos promoting library services. This is our first effort:
An Afternoon Romp
— Ustadza Ely Dec 17, 03:36 PM #
holaco
— khalid Jan 8, 01:50 AM #