It is one of the great truisms of communication of any kind. To be an effective communicator you have to know your audience. Their likes, dislikes, their interests ect. Without knowing those things it is impossible to effectively convey your message, whatever that may be, to your audience. Politicians know it, journalists know this, well, not all journalists know this. Some just pump out crap day after day regardless of the demands of the audience. But the good ones are always aware of who they are speaking to. There we go, 6 years of college and an Everest sized mountain of debt enabled me to write that paragraph with factual accuracy. Money well spent.
The know your audience mantra is clearly something that Butch Jones has taken to heart how do I know this? 1 he is kind of a good recruiter, and 2 he commissioned this lovely video aimed dead center at 17 and 18 year old high school seniors and juniors. Let's take an in depth look.
0:01 | Big miss on the music right out the gate. I know that Nick Minag is inexplicably popular, but this song is at best insufferable, like most everything else that is produced by will.i.am. It doesn't help that the sample is from the first song ever to air on MTV, at least 10 years before the target audience for this video tour was even born. But it takes all of five seconds for the video to get even.
0:05 | 10 straight seconds of UC coeds walking to class or hanging out on Main Street. Strong start. Strong start.
0:15 | Editor "Oh. hey Zach I had no idea that you would be showing up here." Zach, "huh?" Editor "Yeah to be honest you aren't really a part of my vision for this. But what the hell, since you are here let's do this" Zach "But my names on the title slide" Editor "Oh, I know that, but it's kind of like putting Vin Diesl, Paul Walker and The Rock on the Fast Five poster. It's not really about them" Zach shifts his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
0:21 | Zach brings up UC's campus being ranked amongst the most beautiful campuses in the world.
0:28 | Cut to another shot of coed's walking somewhere
0:30 | Generic shots of TUC, Sigma Sigma Commons, ERC because after you talk about how beautiful a campus is you then have to, you know, show the campus.
0:40 | Zach gives a spiel about the Lindner Center. Inexplicably left out is that the building represents a massive pile of debt that the athletic department has spent the better part of 6 years trying to crawl out from under. This video is turning out to be about as fair and balanced as Fox News. Zing.
0:59 | Cut to 10 more seconds of coed's doing college type things like walking and staring at macbook's
1:08 | 5 second explanation of the purpose of main street by Zach
1:14 | cut to 5 more seconds of coed's doing coed things like the laptop watching, walking, waving and siting
1:20 | cut to 3 seconds of Football players hanging out in front of Subway, because that's what the Football guys do. No seriously it doesn't matter what time of day it is. If you walk past that Subway in Stegar you will find at least two Football guys standing there bull shitting. It's the place to be apparently.
1:23 | 7 more seconds of coeds sitting and walking. This thing is turning out to be every bit as subtle as the final scene of North By Northwest.
1:33 | A rundown of all the facilities available at CRC (that's Campus Recreation Center if you didn't know.) Uh oh Swimming Pool mention. I have a bad feeling about this.
1:45 | An impromptu, heavily planned meeting between Zach Collaros and Brendon Kay. This starting to have a very "Cribs" feel to it where someone just happens to be at the house on display on the very day where it is being shot. There is even the slightly awkward half hug. All that is really needed is that stupid fast forward walking thing.
2:00 | Swimming Pool. Bikini's. Boom.
2:15 | Let me just stop you right there Zach. I would really want to hold off on anointing the food at TUC as great. Tolerable? Yes. Adequate? Absolutely. Great? Chick-Fil-A is great, the rest, not so much.
2:29 | Very subtle inclusion of Butch Jones via an Adidas display in the bookstore. Nicely done.
2:40 | Cut to 20 solid seconds of University of Cincinnati B Roll including such favorites as "Crosely Tower," "Random Trees," "Main Street," and "Mick and Mac"
3:02 | OK this stupid exploding white and red balls transition shit is annoying. Like ridiculously annoying I sincerely how that it is never reprised in anything else I ever look.
3:19 | Fade to black
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This is clearly aimed at a 17 or 18 year old kid who is thinking about playing football at UC. You know how I know? Because roughly 1 minute of this three minute video was UC undergrads walking to class or sitting on main street. Butch Jones might not be a great communicator with the media, but he sure as hell knows his audience and hits the crucial points with recruits.
The Football team moved up to Higher Ground today and will start going full bore tomorrow. We here at Down The Drive will keep you posted on any developments this weekend.