It started out with a kiss—how did it end up like this?
That’s the question Moncton university (U of M) is asking itself after a promotional video incited a national debate.
The video, which emphasizes U of M’s French-speaking mandate, shows scenes of students in a lab, at a football game, and kissing in the library.
While some claim the video is harmless fun, Marie Noëlle-Ryan, president of the university professors and librarians association, said she is not so amused.
“It’s a good ad actually, but it’s not what we’d expect from a university to project as an image,” she explained. “The thing that we dislike is that there’s not a single picture of a classroom with a prof teaching or a prof with students . . . There’s nothing about learning except this one [scene] in the lab.”
Ryan said the tone of the video is “more like a beer ad than a university ad.” She said she’d looked at advertisements for universities across the country and none had the same tone or style.
While Ryan said she would prefer to see people reading in the library, the kiss wasn’t her only problem. It’s the way the university itself is being marketed that troubles her.
“We don’t like the idea of being a product to sell, like beer,” she explained.
U of M’s director of communications Marc Angers said this style of advertising is the most effective way to market the university. He said the goal of advertising is to attract attention and generate awareness, which the ad has done. He said he wasn’t expecting the outpour of responses that resulted, but overall the attention is a good thing for the university.
“When you do an ad campaign it’s impossible that everybody will like it,” he said.
Angers said the ad was created after marketing research showed 16-to-18-year-olds were most interested in the social life of a university. This particular ad scored highest on the focus tests they conducted, he said.
Angers said he recognizes the ad is “a bit bolder” than most university ads across the country.
While the emphasis of the video was on the balance between academics and social life, the main theme was always supposed to be the French language, he added. The video plays with the use of the French word “langue,” which also means “tongue.” Right before the kiss the narrator says French is the language “of business affairs . . . and other affairs.”
Carleton university communications professor Rena Bivens said the kiss “looked as though it was a consensual, pleasurable moment.”
“We’ve got so many different attitudes towards sex,” she said, adding sex can only be talked about in certain contexts.
Bivens said the video is appealing to students in a specific way.
“That’s part of what advertising is all about—trying to appeal to what your audience wants,” she explained.
“[The students] all know that they’re going to sit in classrooms . . . What else can you advertise?” she said.
