They won’t of course. The first rule of Dave Hubin’s Public Records office is to delay, redact, and charge out the butt for anything that might conceivably embarrass the Johnson Hall administration, or even just help the public understand what the hell is going on at Oregon’s flagship public university.
So I asked UCLA. Here’s their contract with 160over90, same branders UO has hired. Very helpful folks at the PR office down there, I just emailed them and they sent the contract, no charge. They even offered to chase down some invoices they thought I might be interested in. Meanwhile, the contract and scope of work – for those with the stomach for 20 pages of marketing-speak – are here:
I didn’t see a whole lot of marketing-speak, but I did notice the stamp on the bottom of the first page that said “Confidential and Proprietary.” And yet not a single redaction. It brings tears to my eyes.
That’s $1 million for just one year, not including expenses. We’ve got four more years of 160 to look forward to.
It was clear during campus communicators meetings that this was how much it was going to cost. These meetings are open and many people across campus are invited. A donor stepped up and payed the bill for it. Why are you trying to find dirt where there is none? ps. I’m a classified staff at the UO and hold multiple Master’s with work done around the world. It is embarrassing that a professor would make such misinformed accusations. Learn to learn.
paid, not payed
I think it is pretty clear that this post is a critique of UOs public records operations, not a dig at 160/90 per se. Everyone heard that the ‘what if’ effort is being paid for with donor $, but the UO cannot even release details on the obvious without the routine fees, hurdles and redactions, but UCLA no prob- get it now?
$5M is more than 5x the cost of buying out an incompetent president. Seems high.
A little browsing of the web shows that 160over90 engages in tireless self-promotion, but what is the evidence that their services are worth the $$ spent? There must be standard metrics to judge the value of an advertising campaign. Does anyone here know if any metrics of success have been applied to previous clients’ branding campaigns? Did the UO administration perform due diligence before they engaged the services of this self-proclaimed top-tier agency?
Just wonderin’