Kettering University: May the Stickman be with you

I am a senior in college, most of my friends are in college right now, and my brother is a high school senior deep in the college process, so I am quite familiar with the whole college environment. One of the aspects of that environment is the way high schoolers go about selecting colleges, and as a result, how specialty colleges elicit awareness and enrollment. Just like a school with a small sports program has to operate a bit differently than the big schools to try and compete for athletes, specialty colleges also have to operate a bit differently, and Kettering University is a perfect example.



Now, in my opinion, many specialty schools go about advertising the wrong way. They'll have commercials that say things you may want to know as a perspective college student, but they don't connect. The commercials are boring, and I stopped paying attention to them when I was in middle school. But Kettering U takes a much different route in connecting with potential students. Enter Stickman.



This was my favorite Kettering video. You can check out the rest of them here.

Now, let me give you a little background about Kettering University. First off, it's a specialty school in Michigan, and they specialize in mechanical engineering. You can get more specific information on that by clicking that link, but the fact that US News and World Report has ranked Kettering University as "the #1 University in the nation for Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering" in its annual "America's Best Colleges Guide for 2008" makes me believe that they're pretty darn good. Check out all Kettering's US News Best Colleges standings by clicking that link.

Now, back to the video, I think they do a great job of presenting problems facing a high school senior in a way that they can relate to, and then promote themselves as the answer in an honest way. Things that caught my attention were some of their references. They reference Star Wars, ninjas, even Woot!, one of My Sites. They also reference Halo, which everyone knows takes up a solid chunk of my college life.

I like the style and candor of the ads. They know who they're talking to, but that's obviously perspective college students, everyone knows that. The difference is they know how to talk to them. They know where they're at, they know what they're doing, and they explore that. I think this kind of advertising is rare in the college game.

So, if you're interested in taking Vehicular Crash Dynamics and Accident Reconstruction, a course which they offer, or just check out Kettering University, go to their website, www.kettering.edu. Maybe check out some more of those Stickman videos.