For two years in a row, CSUN ad campaigns win competition.

When California State University Northridge changed the name and focus of its extension learning program two years ago, university officials sought out a unique advertising campaign to get that message out.

The Tseng College of Extended Learning pegged the series of newspaper ads on what its programs could do for employee growth.

Those ads followed the tenets espoused by Russell Paquette, the college's director of Marketing and Advertising Services that they should be original and stick to a marketing goal by appealing to the intended audience.

The college's two ad campaigns were recognized as Best of Show two years in a row by the University Continuing Education Association in its annual Marketing and Publications Awards.

"It has to talk about what they need, not what we are," Paquette said.

Paquette compared most university and college advertising as being "as exciting as tombstone ads in the Wall Street Journal," while Marcella Tyler, Tseng College's executive director of public relations, marketing, and communications, said higher education advertising tends to be "staid."

Bringing a fresh approach was a factor in the college choosing Fourth Wall, a small boutique firm that stood out from the other four finalists under consideration.

"They've never missed," Paquette said. "Even the ideas we reject they come close with."

The college's first award-winning campaign "Employee Cultivation" focused on how employers could get more from their workers through Tseng College programs, while the second, "Don't Be One," featured images of a robot, dinosaur and cloned businessmen with copy promoting CSUN degree programs and professional development courses as means to career advancement.

Both ad campaigns ran exclusively in the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and the Los Angeles Business Journal.

That Fourth Wall and its creative director David Heise and senior copywriter Marc Jensen had little experience with higher education ad campaigns was not a negative to CSUN officials.

Neal Mendelsohn, Fourth Wall's chief experience officer, relishes the idea of being on unfamiliar turf when conceiving an ad campaign.

Sometimes it makes sense to hire a company that has no experience in the field they are devising the campaign for, Mendelsohn said.

"Coming to it fresh we didn't feel held back by any past failures or success or experiences with other education clients," Mendelsohn said.

To get an ad campaign started, Heise and Jensen work from a brief outlining a client's strategy.

In the case of Tseng College, the strategy was three fold: promote the new name, emphasize the change in format that included more degree programs, and use advertising as a replacement for distributing a costly catalogue of course offerings.

The target audience for the print and billboard ads were mid-career professionals looking to add or boost skills, and human resources directors who could direct employees where professional development was available.

Two campaigns

The "Employee Cultivation" campaign consisted of 10 to 15 ads with simple illustrations with a gardening theme and ad copy stressing the "nurturing" and "invigorating" atmosphere the Tseng College provides with its courses.

For the "Don't Be One" campaign, Heise conceded that the concept plays on fears of the value of an employee lacking in up-to-date skills, hence the image of the dinosaur who was notable to evolve.

"The only reason we succeeded with this work was because we had a client who wanted it," Heise said.

"They always challenged us to push the envelope," Jensen added.

Fourth Wall's ads stood out not only for Paquette and Tyler but also for the panel of 12 judges in the UCEA's marketing and advertising contest. The "Don't Be One" ads were among the 400 entries from 65 member institution submitted for the 2006 awards presented in April at the association's annual meeting in San Diego.

Strategic marketing awards were based on magnitude and scope of the marketing challenge, originality and quality of the marketing plan, use of research, needs assessment and other information-based tools, and effectiveness of the campaign.

Ahra Cho, a vice president and account director at Fourth Wall, said winning the Best of Show awards was important because CSUN competed against larger schools with larger advertising budgets.

"We were able to make headway in a very crowded marketplace," Cho said. "It does allow us to leverage our name and have a presence in the academic field."

BY MARK R. MADLER

Staff Reporter