Color of money: Crimson

In the last year, IU tuition has increased by 9 percent. This year's current freshmen were hit with another $1,000 fee to help IU's "commitment to excellence." If you haven't felt the squeeze, I'm sure your parents have. The increases are partly due to a budget crisis, and also to finance "groundbreaking" projects. Even without tuition funding, IU Athletics wasted $136,000 on a marketing campaign that a junior high student could have made with Microsoft Paintbrush.\nIf you are not familiar with this story, ex-Athletic Director Michael McNeely paid a marketing firm $136,000 to improve IU Athletics' image. For $136,000, what did we get? A simpler logo, slightly different colors and jerseys. These changes did not accomplish what they were supposed to do: revive IU football. Attendance this year was relatively the same as it has been during the last six "rebuilding" years. Any marketer will tell you that if your core product is flawed, a glitzy marketing campaign will only work for a short time.\nCertain products can see increased sales through heavy marketing. You can spend millions of dollars marketing Campbell's soup and convince Americans that Campbell's soup is somehow vastly superior to generic soup. They're both just noodles and water, but Campbell's sells a lot more because of shrewd marketing. Football, however, cannot be resurrected with hard hitting ad campaigns. Why? It's blatantly obvious when you've got a bad product. Different brands of chicken noodle soup are still basically chicken noodle soup, but there's a big difference between a good and a bad football team. People go to football games to see wins, period. Purdue's uniforms are greasy, but their games sell out every single weekend. \nThe football situation here is desperate. It's hard to fault the athletic department for trying to generate enthusiasm; being the Bengals of Big Ten isn't easy. However, it is clear that the $136,000 spent was a waste. There's still more money to be spent because the floor and banners at Assembly Hall are still red. Plus, it seems tacky to see the talented pom-pom squad wearing oxblood colored outfits that look purple from the balcony section while the cheerleaders are still in the normal red and white. Go Big … Crimson? \nWas the campaign worth the risk? If it had worked, IU's school spirit would have begun in August rather than November. Should IU be criticized for spending the $136,000? After all, good marketing firms are hard to find and definitely not cheap. Or are they? The Kelley School of Business is only a mile away from the athletic department, and the Marketing Department is one of the top 10 in the United States according to U.S. News and World Report.\nSure, you wouldn't let IU accounting majors file the University's balance sheets, but marketing is different because there are less legal issues. The athletic department could have had the marketing department supervise a case competition for students with the purpose of developing a marketing campaign. The costs would be nothing compared to the $136,000 that was spent, and the results would have been better. Why? We students have lived here for years. We have a more innate sense of what it means to be a Hoosier. An outside marketing firm cannot come to Bloomington and replicate that through surveys. Plus, students would have a voice in school policies as well as something to add to their resumes. Not to mention the most qualified people on earth to evaluate the submissions, the faculty of the Kelley School of Business marketing department. \nTack that onto the saved money and you've got a winner.