Red no longer means “Go”… unless you mean backwards…

General31

Apparently the new Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Communications Officer, Joe Hice, is not impressed with the “Red Means Go” campaign as he claims it offends. Instead of starting an entirely new campaign, Hice is reportedly looking to rejuvenate the “We all go to NC State…” campaign from the 90’s… certainly not the glory days of NCSU… with in-house production teams to “save the University money.” Who doesn’t cringe at the thought of this?

The Red Means Go commercials apparently cost us $200,000. I’m not sure what the entire budget is for the University since 2008 when these commercials first started airing, but I would rest easy gambling on the fact that $200,000 is a fraction of a fraction of a percent.

Other schools spend between $500,000 and $5,000,000 on advertising which this includes the cost of television spots mind you. Hice wants to take his (our?) new campaign to more metro markets such as D.C., NYC and San Francisco. San Francisco? He is unsure at this time what the total cost will be, but that will depend in part on how much state funding the University receives for the project.

All of this according to our good friends over at the TBJ: NCSU to drop Red Means Go

I read this article and it certainly turned me for a loop. Surely… surely… we are not going back to that God-forsaken campaign that was repeatedly, tirelessly, and appropriately mocked by my friends who went to other Universities. Please. No.

In somewhat of a panic I jumped on the web to learn who Joe Hice is and what he stands for. I learned quite a bit. There’s more to this story…

He’s clearly someone with an impressive resume after holding a similar position at University of Florida. Given UF’s national image (mostly garnered from highly successful athletics mind you), I immediately began to calm a bit. There are several Universities that I think have a phenomenal all-around national image, and UF is certainly one of those. Here we have a guy who was hired at NC State to do something he’s apparently pretty good at doing. That’s somewhat of a welcomed change at our University, and it appears we can now expect nothing less with a sharp guy like Woodson at the helm.

But what is this gibberish about cutting what I and many other alumni believe to be an edgy, effective branding campaign in “Red Means Go” only to return to something long ago thrown in the trash can that causes us to be the butt of jeers and jokes to this day? Hopefully, the simple answer here is that Hice was not around when this silly campaign aired. It is therefore reasonable to believe that he simply cannot appreciate the reverse effect that such a pitiful portrayal of our University had.

In researching Hice, I found that he is obviously on the Social Media train given he has a very active personal Facebook page and has created a Chief Communications Officer – NCSU Facebook page. From there I saw a link from the Alumni Association’s Facebook page that linked an entry from www.hiceschool.com, Hice’s personal, professional blog.

There Hice shared this with his readers… thankfully:

Ad Campaign in creative phase only

A story in the media today implies that NC State has made the decision to go back to the “We all go to NC State” ad campaign of the mid-1990s. That is not the case.

While I like the message at the end of the ad and have blogged about it here and talked about it around campus, we’re not ready to go there. This is one of several directions we’re considering. We haven’t even gotten the Chancellor involved in the discussion, and I can tell you, nothing will happen without his involvement.

So for now, keep the ideas coming. The creative process doesn’t happen overnight. Red does mean go at NC State. NC State is North Carolina’s University (and North Carolina is a pretty cool state). And when we have big challenges to address and problems to solve, we look to NC State.

Have a great holiday.

Passion Rules!

1 of Many

And so we have been charged with the task… or rather the opportunity… to give our input on what will become the brand that is NCSU. If you are of the creative sort, please take Mr. Hice up on his offer and submit your ideas. It sounds as though he and his staff are truly and honestly open to our opinion. Again, that’s a refreshing change…

Further, please check out Mr. Hice’s blog linked above. He’s added a great entry about the controversy brewing in Flint, Michigan over a simple little drawing of a Spartan. University branding is clearly an important issue despite the stance of some of our past administrators.

Maybe since he’s getting in touch with the happenings in Flint, MI, he’ll see that we can and should go back to the traditional Block S and “STATE” logos.

General

31 Responses to Red no longer means “Go”… unless you mean backwards…

  1. jwrenn29 06/04/2010 at 10:22 PM #

    Where’s the “Like” button to his comments? 🙂

  2. PackerInRussia 06/05/2010 at 8:05 AM #

    Oh the power of a simple explanation (as opposed to making us all guess what’s going on “behind the scenes”). I appreciate that e-mail response.

    As to the ad, you can never have too many Mr. T commercials: “I pity the fool who doesn’t go to NC State.” Instant celebrity credibility and intimidation at the same time.

  3. Zen Wolf 06/05/2010 at 4:33 PM #

    How about 30 seconds of a pack of wolves tearing apart a Ram carcas. National Geo Style. At the end show an our block S with the nc and have a caption that reads “NC State One Carniverous Education”

    GO Pack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. packalum44 06/06/2010 at 10:27 AM #

    I like Red Means Go. Its better than the vast majority of other schools’ commercials. Just as with anything else, if you do away with it, you better get something better. A rough-draft of my vision is as follows:

    I’d personally like to see NC State filmed from the air, with Centennial Campus being the “center piece”. I think that research campus, which we all forget was voted the #1 Research Science Park of the Year in 2007 (the same accolade received by RTP years earlier!!!), is what distinguishes NC State from other universities (thank Jim Hunt for the land, given to us at his discretion in the 80s). This accolade should be shouted from the roof tops because its a BFD. Also I would incorporate SAS, Red Hat, and Cree among other nationally and internationally known spin offs. I tell people about these companies being NC State spin offs all the time and they are impressed. In fact, some of my colleagues from up north tell me they would send their kids to NC State. I don’t say that to toot my own horn b/c that’s silly, I just say it b/c its a great school that is under-ranked. We all have an individual obligation to market it, which admittedly is much different for those who live in NC b/c of the red-headed step child status. But stats are stats and spin offs are spin offs.

    As Woodard says, the time has come to throw humility (used as a euphemism for dumb asses red necks with no marketing skills) aside and to trumpet our accomplishments.

    Back to the commercial, kind of like this but real from a helicopter and obviously professionally edited with Raleigh’s skyline incorporated in there.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY6h4Gp9rXU

    Our association with the city and RTP is important, as they received as many accolades as any in the country. Incorporate these rankings into the commercial. We should go after San Fran, btw, because they are our competitors and counterparts on the West Coast. Those students should know about us (NC State, Raleigh, RTP, Centennial, SAS, Red Hat, Cree). Separately each of the above organizations are just okay but together they are pretty damn impressive.

    We should max out the out of state students for a myriad of reasons and I’ll rip anyone a new ass hole who tries to challenge this notion on the premise of NCSU being a state university with the mission to serve the state and all the other sound-bite reasoning that fails to think past Stage 1.

    – We best serve our state by having the best and brightest students who become successful alumni. Successful alumni give back $ and prestige.
    – The more talent (i.e. smart and motivated kids) NC State has the more spin offs created, the more jobs created in the state. The more the state GDP is raised, the more people move there etc…

    – The more out of state kids who move back home market the school just as I mentioned I did earlier. The more alumni that are dispersed around the country and world the more bosses and employers who learn about NC State. The more they know and the smarter the alumni the more they recruit there. (An admitted problem for NC State is that students tend to stay in NC concentrating the alumni base which does not benefit the school nearly as much as dispersion.)

    – Basically, when you “cap” the supply of anything, you are limiting yourself. What if you are the b-ball coach…you going to say I won’t recruit out of state. Of course not. There is only so much talent to go round in NC. Same with academic side. There are only so many smart kids in NC. There are only 9.3M there. There’s 307M+ in the US. 6.6B in the world. We are limiting ourselves to 3% of the US recruits and .1% of the world.

    The axiom that universities best serve their state by recruiting state kids is painfully wrong and harmful to the state. Luckily Woodard shares this view. He thinks beyond Stage 1.

  5. Classof89 06/07/2010 at 11:43 AM #

    I’m an alumni over 40, and count me in with the folks who like the “We All Go to NC State” campaign better. The fast talking Dennis Miller look alike reminded me of a high pressure used care salesman, and, as others have noted, I associate “Red Means Go” with a pathetic Duke University football campaign of the early 1980s…

    Surely there are better ways to demonstrate technological prowess then having the guy who sells juicers at the Flea Market (the one with the loudspeakers and head set) as our spokesperson??

  6. McCallum 06/07/2010 at 5:54 PM #

    Edgy used car salesman = cheap

    Nobody does CHEAP like NC State.

    But let me see if I can do the RED MEANS GO ad for you:

    Red means GO at NC State. I’m not really an alumni but a hard knock actor paid to play pocket pool before you all the while lauding this university I know very little about. The entire context of my words will not strike you as anything other than remote and removed and you’ll be left with the impression that most State graduates are fast paced cheap edgy twerps that wear too much cologne and sleep in their mock turtle neck. No accent you are wondering, let me splash on a little extra Brute for you.

    Now this university gets things done. Ignore the dumping ground for BOG ideas and that latest little spat with the Easleys, State graduates are cutting edge, poised and know how to get things done (subtext: all of that is a load of it especially in light OF the Easley issues). Not only do we wear serious looking facial hair most of the year but the people walking behind and past me are also so remote that none actually are speaking to one another UNLESS they are discussing the latest quandary in the senior level hydraulics class. See, here in the fast paced world of North Carolina State University people do not really have time to understand people. We are too busy thinking up the next greatest pain in the a$$ for everyone else to deal with in the most mundane of matters. So when someone has a basic question we fast paced people can lean back…….take a deep long breath akin to Robert Mitchem pulling from an unfiltered Camel…..stroke our beard and then lie to you like there is no tomorrow.

    So you’ve gotta keep up in this fast paced world and a place like NC State, where pocket pool and cheapness rule the day, is a leader. RED MEANS GO at NC State, home of the WOLP FACK!!

    McCallum

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