This essay examines the deliberately humorous approaches undertaken in two recent higher education marketing endeavors: The American Council on Education's "Solutions for Our Future" campaign and Stanford's "Hail, Stanford, Hail" initiative. Three television commercials from each project are described and discussed in light of a view of comedy…

Little empirical research exists in terms of how colleges and universities create their institutional image and brand. In this chapter, the author explores the notion of branding within the context of higher education--and how intercollegiate athletics contributes to it--analyzing the messages universities conveyed during nationally televised bowl…

This article reports how some colleges in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's basketball tournament have produced unlikely commercials. One of them is Drake University, which has a TV ad that consists entirely of a series of numbers, words, phrases, and stylized drawings in two shades of blue instead of the usual pictures of…

This book offers ideas that secondary teachers, university content faculty, and teacher educators can use to challenge traditional literacy practices and demonstrate creative, innovative ways of incorporating new literacies into the classroom, all within a strong theoretical framework. Teachers are trying to catch up to the new challenges of the…

Indicates that between 30 and 60 percent of the television viewers engage in a number of extra activities during commerical breaks. (RB)

Analyzes the content of more than 1000 commercials sampled from ABC, CBS, and NBC. Finds that nostalgia was used by means of theme, copy or music about 10 percent of the time and that nostalgic references to family activities or to "olden days" were most likely to be used with food and beverage commercials. (PRA)

Concludes that "key visuals" (single frames of artwork storyboards or finished television commercials that sum up the creative strategy of the whole commercial) can be used to pretest the interest levels of viewers in television commercials. (GT)

Describes a journalism methods course in advertising in which college students observed and analyzed videotaped commercials produced by sixth graders. (RB)

The purpose of this class exercise is to increase undergraduate psychology students' awareness of common persuasion techniques used in advertising, including the appeal to or creation of needs, social and prestige suggestion, and the use of emotionally loaded words and images. Television commercials and magazine advertisements are used as…

The major advantage of television in an advertising course is the continuity with which the commercials are integrated into the lecture material. (HOD)

Finds that black representation in television ads exceeded the percentage population distribution of blacks in 1991; lower valued products had higher black model-product interaction than higher valued products; and "black-oriented" shows had a greater percentage of all black ads, ads with blacks in major roles, and ads depicting blacks in skilled…

Outlines a study in which television advertising supplied the text that college students were challenged to interpret. Explains that the language and images of this advertising posed a complex, cognitive challenge--even to these students at advanced levels of education. Concludes that information processing of television advertising presents a…

Describes a student project for a class on cognitive psychology in which students learn about the application of psychology principles by designing and producing television commercials. Discusses evaluation by both students and teachers. Explains that the principles used include primacy, rehearsal, repetition, and cue dependence. (DK)

Analyzes 830 television spots from 8 presidential campaigns. Shows that the "negativism" charged to the 1988 campaign is actually at the same level as the two previous campaigns. Finds that what tends to differentiate negative from positive ads is not party or incumbency but a more frequent appeal to voters' fears. (PRA)