UNM's marketing department unveiled new plans to advertise the University on Tuesday.
The department created a television ad, as well as online social networking pages on Facebook, YouTube and MySpace, and a photo-sharing page for UNM students at Flickr.unm.edu.
Cinnamon Blair, UNM's marketing director, said money for the project comes from the $250,000 the University allocated for branding this fiscal year.
President David Schmidly said the project will help UNM reach out to students in new ways.
"These kids are a lot different than when I came to college," Schmidly said. "We used to get catalogs in the mail, and that's not how you approach students today."
UNM's pages on social networking sites feature links to the University's Web site, as well as the fight song, discussion boards and other information linking visitors to UNM.
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"We don't create the content. We don't create the message. We have given up control of that, and that's what younger people respond to these days," Blair said. "They don't care to be marketed to - research has shown that. They want an authentic voice, and that's what we are providing right here."
Blair said the response to UNM's social networking pages has been positive.
UNM's Facebook page, which was created in March, has 841 students, faculty and staff connected as friends.
Blair said this response has been quicker than that of New Mexico State University, which has had a Facebook page for two years and has 1,400 students.
The marketing department also produced a 30-second video advertisement, which will be aired during football games.
"We decided this year to be more innovative," Blair said. "We are the first University to create an animated ad. Part of it is based on student input and feedback, so we actually engaged our students in the creation of this ad."
In the 60-second version of the advertisement shown to the Board of Regents, an animated sheep describes how he has felt out of place all his life, until he learned about UNM. The sheep talks about finding the right spot for him when he comes to UNM. When the sheep walks around campus, he wears a Lobo costume - a sheep in wolf's clothing.
Blair said the ad will be effective because it is different from typical University ads, which show scenic shots of campus and talk about research education and health care.
"We wanted to send one single message: that you can be yourself and you can be a Lobo here at UNM," she said. "What we tried to do with the social media is engage people and start building relationships and then sustain those relationships."
Blair said the ad will also be aired three times an hour during the school year and summer semester in 12 Albuquerque high schools.
Doug Fields, Faculty Senate president-elect, said the ad was unimpressive.
"These all seem like they are geared towards the undergraduate crowd, but for President Schmidly's request for higher enrollment in the graduate programs, I think we need something that is focused more toward our achievements and the University academics and the programs and the medicine and law and these other areas," he said.
Ashley Fate, ASUNM president, said the ad will be effective.
"As a student, I love this commercial, because it is something different and it's not the traditional panoramic landscape, because every university has that and to me that doesn't differentiate one university from another," she said.
Christopher Ramirez, GPSA president, said that in the past four or five months, students have sought information from him through the online social networking sites.
"Several new graduate students, who are going to be attending the University, have actually met with me via Facebook," he said. "Then several people have asked me questions about the programs here and more information."
