You're clearly right about this story, Ray: UC-list comments have media
legs, eh? Especially with City Paper, which, knowing its readership, loves
to cover University City's teapot tempests.
And of course we should be looking at your marketing efforts over at Penn,
because they are (a) inevitable and (b) consequential. Collectively, you
represent the largest private employer in Philadelphia. Your growth over a
lifetime is what changed the demographic facts on the ground, bringing in
tens of thousands of individuals like yourself to live here. You all are a
part of the neighborhood now and you have remade it. So it really did make
sense, even to many non-Penn folks like me, to rename it.
"University City" is a much better name than "Penn City", though. In my part
of the neighborhood, USP is at least as important as Penn is. And the
USP-Penn-Drexel axis creates a large, contiguous off-campus community that
draws academics from other schools outside the neighborhood. However, Penn
is stuck with the leadership of this Axis of Degree-Granting. Both its good
deeds and its blunders will be laid at your feet, sorry.
Marketing and branding are part of every large economic entity and this
truth need not remain quiet. You are as entitled to do marketing and
branding as the rest of us are. It's as legitimate a part of your operation
as information service is, for instance, and neighbors should be encouraged
to become aware of it.
That doesn't mean your marketers will always do the right thing. But hey,
even the IT boys screw up at times, right? They should all be watched and
they should get feedback. Even screwy feedback.
"Screwy" is a fair description of the sticker authors' thinking. If their
beef is with UCD, then they should print stickers that read "UCD = Al Qa'ida
Sleeper Cell". But there's more to life than clear thinking. The stickers
are flashy and fun, and that's fine enough.
If you, though, have a particular concern with the UCD part of your
marketing program -- have you tried hashing this out internally before
taking to the internet with your discontent? Seriously. What responses have
you gotten from in-house discussions at Penn? What obstacles have you run
into? We can all give you feedback, but I don't feel it's ultimately our job
to sort out this question for you. I'm sure we'd all like a Penn that was
more responsive to our input than it now is, but we can't make you change
your behavior because we can't make you sign checks. We can only ask.
-- Tony West
yes, the article does sound like a rehash -- it actually repeats the very
same speculations that were aired here on this list (the speculation about
how the stickers are in reaction to a 40 year old marketing scheme, the
speculation about how they must be the work of "young activists who live
in a kind of self-imposed temporary poverty.")
meanwhile, marketing is marketing, branding is branding, and some quiet
little truth of the stickers' message has now been amplified, ironically,
in giant painted letters above the walnut street bridge: a penn-branded
message that links "Penn" with a tagline "welcome to university city".
as the author says, 'university city' IS a marketing scheme -- but he
doesn't seem to appreciate that it's happening now, at the same time the
stickers are appearing and ucd has claimed the "leading role in
developing, managing and expanding the university city brand". most of
the article is spent trying to explain how the stickers are in pointless
reaction to a 40-year old marketing scheme, to inevitable urban changes
happening in many cities decades ago...
but then again, the article is entitled, 'schemers on the schuylkill'...
perhaps after all someone at city paper wants to remind us that we
*should* be looking at that painted bridge, so close to the schuylkill?
:-)
..................
UNIVERSITY*CITOYEN
[aka laserbeam®]
[aka ray]
----
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the
list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see
<http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
