PENN STATE’S NEW TELEVISION COMMERCIAL, APPEARING DURING ATHLETIC CONTESTS, PREDICTS BABIES’ CAREERS

University Park, Pa. – The universal, unexplainable compulsion for people to predict children’s future careers before they are even out of their diapers is lampooned in a commercial produced for national broadcast during upcoming Penn State football games and other athletic events.
Instead of focusing on picture-perfect campus scenes, students in classrooms and labs, or athletic traditions, the 30-second commercial’s producers hit on the idea of showing babies being -- well, babies -- and then flashing their far-off job aspirations in captions.
Thus, a baby playing with blocks is identified as a future “architect”; one falling over gracefully will be a “diving coach”; one who is cranky one moment and beatific the next must have “actress” dreams; one waving a feather duster is a destined “air traffic controller”; one chewing on another’s hand is on the path to “management”; one tearing off a diaper will get into “waste management”; and one who manages to clonk himself on the head with a thrown toy is surely a burgeoning “quarterback.”
The commercial, which will be seen first on ABC’s east coast and mid-south stations during the Sept. 1 football match-up of the Penn State Nittany Lions and Miami, was produced by a Philadelphia advertising and marketing consultancy firm called goose, which specializes in gender-oriented marketing.
Founded by Joyce Rivas, a 1978 graduate in advertising and a member of the Penn State College of Communications Alumni Society, and creative director Kelly Simmons, goose donated its services, in part, to help show Penn State advertising students how to vault the walls of conventional promotions for such common clients as institutions of higher education.
“Most university advertising is all about trees and test tubes, and doesn’t break through the clutter,” Rivas said. “Our strategy was simple: to present Penn State not as a jock school, but as a major university with depth and a human touch that helps students fulfill their personal destiny.”
Simmons, who has won numerous regional and national advertising awards, wrote and directed the spot with Ed Buffman, director of photography.
Steve MacCarthy, vice president for University Relations, said,”We sought out ideas from a number of successful alumni who work in communications to use this television time and are grateful for their suggestions. The free air time we receive for some of these televised sporting events gives us an opportunity to promote Penn State with viewers around the country.”
The commercial is available for viewing on the Web at http://www.psu.edu/ur/stories/BabiesSpot/index.html.
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Contact: Gary Cramer, Department of Public Information, (814) 865-7517 or gwc104@psu.edu.