The UO recently embarked on the second year of a three-year image advertising campaign in Portland. The campaign is part of a growing university effort to boost its presence in the Portland area.

Three of the ads from last year’s campaign and three new ads are being published in rotation in The Oregonian over a sixteen-week period from November 13-February 26. Two of the ads will also be published in the Portland Business Journal in February.

The Oregonian ads, touting student and faculty excellence, are running every Sunday in the A section. Each consists of a single, oversize image spanning nearly an entire page with text focusing on the depicted person’s achievement, along with the tagline, “If UOnly knew.” UO officials coordinating the effort say the ads are intended to affect both admissions and fundraising objectives.

The ads being rerun from last year feature Michelle Flanigan, a 2003 UO sports marketing graduate who now works in sales and marketing for the Seattle SuperSonics; Brian Truong, a Presidential Scholarship student from Beaverton; and Dave Johnson, a professor of chemistry and a leader of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute. The new ads feature Bruce Blonigen, Knight Professor of Economics, who teaches a class in community economics; Richard Taylor, professor of physics who studies fractals, curious repeating patterns found in nature; and Han-Mei Chiang, a 2004 architecture graduate now working for a Portland architecture firm.

”We got great feedback from alumni and prospective students on the ads that ran last year,” said Michael Redding, associate vice president for Public and Government Affairs. “Portland is home to the single-largest concentration of UO alumni and is the most prolific city-of-origin in terms of our student body. So it’s vital to the success of the university that we keep illustrations of UO excellence prominent in the minds of those who mean so much to us.”

The ads are the most recent and visible part of the UO’s expanding Portland strategy. Other components include a Portland communications plan, “First Thursday” and career networking events at the UO Portland Center and this newsletter, PDX Ducks.

Click here to see one of the new image ads.