I've spent much of my career telling stories for brands.
A marketing campaign for ESPNU -- ESPN's college sports network -- called "NEVER GRADUATE" caught my attention. Its intent is to tell alums and fans of college sports team that they can always feed their passion for their school at ESPNU.
I get it.
Yet, my first reaction to the campaign was this; "Why would a TV network that is devoted exclusively to college athletics, create the tagline; NEVER GRADUATE?
Then I realized ESPN doesn't care if student-athletes ever graduate from college -- they just care if these entertainers (excuse me, student-athletes) provide them with great programming while they're on campus over a one to five year period of their life. They could care less about the next forty to fifty years of the lives of these student-athletes.
I get it.
While I fully understand it's not ESPN's role in life to make sure student-athletes graduate from college -- that's up to the universities and the NCAA they send checks to. I would have thought there might be one senior executive in Bristol, CT who would have determined this isn't the best message to associate with college athletics: NEVER GRADUATE.
Unfortunately, they don't "have" to get it -- they just have to get you to tune-in.
