According to Ad Age, University of Phoenix spent $134 million on measured media last year. The school also inked a $154 million deal for naming rights at the NFL stadium near its Phoenix headquarters in 2006. Yet, the brand continues to be ill defined, claims the trade mag.
Pereira & O’Dell, a fancy new San Francisco startup was hired by Phoenix to help change all that. But from the looks of the new campaign, the brand and agency still have some distance to travel. There’s no light bulb moment here, an aha that makes me stop and say, maybe University of Phoenix is a good school. Instead, we have yet another in the line of “I’m a Mac” takeoffs. Furthermore, testimonials from inside the school aren’t going to get the job done for University of Phoenix. This is a brand people wonder about. You change that by changing the story.