Sypherd does double take on ad campaign

A key UA administrator expressed misgivings last week about hiring an out-of-town advertising firm to polish the university's image.

After directing "tens of thousands of dollars" into a massive ad campaign masterminded by a Scottsdale-based public relations firm, Provost Paul Sypherd is second-guessing himself.

"I think we were ill-advised," he said in an e-mail message.

Sypherd was the driving force behind an advertising campaign that plastered billboards with slogans like, "Find yourself and other amazing discoveries." Other billboards pictured blank television screens with the caption, "Mars as seen without our telescope."

The University of Arizona Foundation, a private, nonprofit fundraising arm of the university, retained Scottsdale-based advertising firm Lavidge, Hegel and Bonmayr in February to improve the university's image.

But this summer, administrators including Sypherd and President Peter Likins will join the UA Foundation's governing board to decide whether to continue with the firm, said Dana Weir, a UA Foundation spokeswoman.

Weir would not reveal how much the Foundation paid the agency, but, Sypherd said, the campaign's cost is to the tune of "tens of thousands of dollars."

Critics contend that the UA already had the resources to do the campaign on campus.

"There is a strong sentiment that we have the talent on campus and should use it rather than pay an agency," Sypherd said. "We will see."

The choice of the Scottsdale firm also drew fire from the outset as Tucson agencies clamored angrily against being shut out of bidding for the job.

"I, as a UA alum, and the many in this community who have supported this university, thought we'd at least be considered for the job, but we weren't even given a chance," said Douglas S. Myers, a UA marketing program graduate and spokesman for Tucson-based Hilton and Myers Advertising.

Sypherd said the more than 100-mile distance between Scottsdale and the university was a problem.

"If we needed a photo shoot with students, a local firm would have known how to get it done," he said. "With Lavidge, Hegel and Bonmayr we had to find the students and get them into UA T-shirts."

Regent Hank Amos, a Tucson resident, agreed hiring the firm "to better tell our story" was a good move, saying news stories often cast negative light on the university.

"Some has been warranted but a lot of it has been unwarranted," he said.

The firm also saw the university through negative publicity , fielding backlash from the possible contract between the UA athletic department and Nike, and the administration's unauthorized release of faculty and students' social security numbers to MCI Telecommunications Corp. and Saguaro Credit Union early this spring.