UW: Focus group shows many among women, ethnic groups approve of slogan

The training — geared for employees and attended by a mix of faculty, staff and administrators — also drew the attention of associate professor Christine Porter, who has been vocal about her opposition to the slogan in both local and national press.

Porter and others hung posters in the hallway outside the training session, with alternative slogans such as “The world needs more critical thinking,” and “The world needs more cowgirls.”

She added she agrees with the phrase “The world needs more cowboys.”

“A public university is for everybody, not only for cowboys,” Porter said. “Take the phrase, ‘The world needs more Christians.’ Christians are wonderful. The world arguably needs more of them — that doesn’t make it an okay slogan for a university. This is not in anyway anti-cowboy or meaning to diminish the powerful history of cowboys in Wyoming and in the nation.”

Despite her objections to the slogan, Porter said she supported the campaign.

“UW is investing $1.4 million in reclaiming the racial diversity of who cowboys are — that part is great,” she said. “However, the idea that all women at UW are supposed to now subsume their gender idea to that of cowboy, to that of ‘boy,’ will never be okay with me.”

UW paid $500,000 to the Boulder, Colorado, firm Victors & Spoils, but once advertising space and other costs of implementation are factored in, the new campaign represents a $1.4 million effort by the university to recruit future students and boost its profile across the country.

The campaign was originally set for launch in September. As the campaign and its “cowboy” slogan were presented to various groups on campus — including Staff Senate and ASUW — it received praise from many at the university for its potential to inspire future students and provide a consistent style for marketing materials and endeavors.

Conversation on the faculty listserv regarding the slogan’s appropriateness culminated in a survey, conducted by Porter, in which an overwhelming number of respondents said the image they most associate with cowboys is that of a white male.

Following media attention from organizations as diverse as the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Reuters and Fox News, the UW Board of Trustees voted Thursday to roll out the campaign early. Later that same day, UW publicly released the campaign’s anthem video — a promotional piece that places an emphasis on redefining the stereotypical ‘cowboy.’

“The world needs more cowboys and not just the kind that sweep you off your feet and ride into the sunset,” the video states. “Ours are diverse cowboys, who come in every sex, shape, color and creed. They come from Wyoming, Montana, Delaware and Nigeria.”

UW Director of Communications Chad Baldwin spoke to the debate surrounding the slogan during the training session Tuesday.

“This only succeeds to the extent that it’s inclusive,” he said. “We have to be able to create a situation where everyone can feel like the term ‘cowboy’ can represent them.”

Baldwin added this redefinition was at the core of the campaign.

“A key element to all of our advertising to prospective students — digital and otherwise — will be the juxtaposition of cowboys with an image or wording that is not the stereotypical image of a guy in a cowboy hat,” he said. “Much of the power in this campaign rests upon that dissonance.”

Porter said she appreciated the work that had gone into making the campaign inclusive — especially the specific language regarding other sexes and colors that was added following conversations between Institutional Communications and the university’s diversity council — but the slogan itself still excludes any woman who cannot identify with the word “boy.”

“I will never think of myself as a cowboy,” she said.

Baldwin, speaking for UW, has backed up the inclusivity of the campaign with preliminary findings from an independent outside evaluation of the video’s effectiveness.

“When the idea for this marketing campaign was first pitched to us by the folks at Victors & Spoils … I was skeptical,” he said. “And my scepticism was based on the fact that I’m a white, middle-aged Wyoming native (who always respected cowboys).”

The evaluation changed his mind, Baldwin said.

Brand research firm Mindsight showed the anthem video to a nationally representative sample of 536 adolescents strongly considering college. The evaluation found the video greatly increased the likelihood of respondents considering or applying to UW. This pattern held for both the sample as a whole and among ethnic respondents, both male and female and both those who were aware of UW before the video and those who were not.

Respondents also reported the video changed their perception of both cowboys and UW.

“We are still waiting on some numbers with some breakdowns as to specific ethnicities and we expect to have those next week,” Baldwin added.

Associate Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Kyle Moore also presented during the training session.

“Beyond the state of Wyoming, there are a lot of students who need the University of Wyoming,” he said. “There are a lot of students who can’t find what we all have here in Laramie, in Casper, across this great state.”

The new campaign, he said, will help those students find UW.