Never mess with a good thing.
Until this weekend, this university was great at many things, including the obvious ones like athletics, academics and research. But it was our slogan, “Fear the Turtle,” that truly stood out from other schools. It was original, catchy, ironic and well known. For some reason, however, officials weren’t satisfied. And now, one year and $250,000 later, “Fear the Turtle” has been joined by a new slogan: “Unstoppable Starts Here.” We can’t help but shake our heads and wonder what exactly administrators were thinking when they chose such a lackluster and generic slogan.
Originally given a budget of $1 million to devise a new marketing and advertising approach, administrators thought “Fear the Turtle” had become too associated with athletics and that a new slogan should emphasize academics, research and the other areas where the university shines. But administrators failed to understand that sports are at the very heart of this college.
Any slogan will become entwined with athletics, particularly when the main time people see TV ads for the university is during football and basketball games. While the new slogan is vague enough to be applied to research and academics, it can also be easily applied to sports. In other words, the university has spent $250,000 to replace an iconic sports slogan with a dull sports slogan.
We’ve seen this story before. Until 2003, when “Fear the Turtle” debuted, the slogan “Act Like You Know” was plastered on buses and T-shirts. It was meant to decrease rioting and breed community, but instead caused resentment and mockery, particularly the satirical web spin-off, actlikeyougiveaf—.com. The administration was derided for wasting their money on a slogan no one wanted or liked. The university’s marketing and communication offices apparently didn’t learn their lesson.
If the university really wanted to spend that money wisely in an effort to breed community, they should have gone to the source of such community: students. A competition should have been held for students to submit slogans and the winner would receive some sort of monetary award. If students, the actual face of the university, couldn’t come up with something more representative of the campus community, then administrators could have splurged on something like “Unstoppable Starts Here.” After all, the university already had a superb slogan to begin with.
While community certainly has something to do with the new slogan, Vice President for University Relations Brodie Remington has stated that the new marketing initiative is about making an impact on research funding and donations. If that’s the case, then “Unstoppable Starts Here” really is a step in the wrong direction.
Administrators did something right when they devised “Fear the Turtle” several years ago, but attempts to change something that’s already good are unnecessary. The new slogan will likely meet the fate of other drab slogans. It will be ridiculed and satirized by students, sales of clothing bearing the slogan won’t sell, and the university will be out a quarter of a million dollars.
And standing atop a very stoppable slogan will be that fearsome turtle.
