New UC campaign spotlights power of public
May 19, 2014 •
As part of its ongoing public outreach, the University of California has launched a new statewide advertising campaign that puts a spotlight on UC’s impact and its roots in the university’s public identity.
Built around the concept of “the power of public,” the campaign highlights how the university’s work in research, health care and education benefits California and the world in tangible ways.
The eye-catching ads take an everyday phrase, like “public transit,” and pair it with an unexpected and arresting image, like the exoskeleton developed at UC Berkeley to help people with spinal cord injuries walk again. In another, the phrase “public defender” is matched with a picture of a vial of Hepatitis B vaccine, illustrating UC’s contributions to battling devastating diseases.
“We want to get Californians to look at these familiar phrases in a different way, so they pause for a moment and think about the value that their public research university contributes to their world every day,” said Katherine Edwards, interim executive director of Marketing Communications at UC’s Office of the President.
The ads direct viewers to the new www.universityofcalifornia.edu, where the stories behind each ad will be featured over the coming weeks.
The campaign is the latest evolution of the work that UCOP’s Marketing Communications team began two years ago with the “Onward, California” campaign to build the public’s awareness of and connection to the university.
“We want to engage Californians in a conversation about the university’s public nature and how so many of UC’s contributions to California stem from that fact,” Edwards said. “Being committed to work that serves the public and supports the common good is what UC is about and people should see that commitment from us and feel they have a stake in it.”
The campaign, which started May 1, will run through June in high-traffic transit locations in major metropolitan areas statewide, on National Public Radio, and in select leading digital publications, with a second phase slated for early fall.
