One Singular Sensation

Yesterday, its was Joy Apparel's unique one-to-one t-shirt concept.  Today, Surprise Central is proud to present Wilkes University, a small school with a big idea about one-to-one recruiting.

Now, every school I know claims to be focused on the individual, but Wilkes U goes out and grabs 'em by the short ones with a personalized ad campaign that calls target candidates out by name and zooms in on their particular achievements and passions. For example, to attract Nicole Pollack to its freshman class, Wilkes made her a media star, plastering her name on billboards, pizza boxes, gas pumps and an MTV ad. (Nicole said yes, by the way.)

They didn't stop with her. 

That's Liz Wendolowski's "great debate" message above.  Here are some more:

"Hey Kristen Pecka. Only your closest friends at Central Catholic call you Pecka-lecka-lecka. Choose Wilkes University and add 2,362 more people to that list."

"Scranton High senior Nicole Pollock: Our goal at Wilkes University is to be as much a mentor as your mother has been. (Now, if we could only make her ravioli.)"

Each ad ends by asking the candidate to "call a Colonel," the school's nickname, at 570-408-6030.  The campaign, which only cost $120,000 and is attracting world-wide attention, was put together by a Philadelphia-based agency called "160 Over 90," (named after a high blood-pressure reading) and personifies what Darryl Cilli, the agency's executive creative director, describes as the “human reaction” that advertising seeks to provoke from consumers.

Mission accomplished, Darryl.  The only way to get more of a human reaction than this is to physically abduct each potential freshman.  Hmmm...

(And perhaps you can cut a deal with Joy Apparel for some frosh week t-shirts for all these guys...)