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Re-dubbing ‘UW’

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by Darryl Schnell

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Many University of Wisconsin students are well aware of the ingredients for a successful "bar crawl," most notably several friends, several bars, lots of booze and lots of walking.

And for some local companies, such bar crawls have proven to be a successful business venture to target students with a creative alternative to advertising.

UW senior Melissa Sandgren, founder of the college apparel company U-DUB, said relative to other sects of the population, college students are quite independent, so convincing them to buy a product is not the goal.

"If they're curious about something, or interested, students have the resources and the ability to check things out further on their own," Sandgren said. "The main thing I've tried to do in the promotion of U-DUB is getting the name out there, just getting students to be able to recognize the name."

The company, which Sandgren founded last August, has found a niche at UW by specifically targeting the student population and using what it means to be a UW student as a theme for the company's products.

U-DUB has reached out to students by handing out apparel during the UW Homecoming parade or before football games, hanging posters and flyers in College Library, going on promotional pub crawls and sending out e-mails to the entire UW student population through yet another student business, UW Net Nerds.

Sandgren admitted that targeting students means promoting the drinking culture at UW, which has drawn some concern from the university.

Among the slogans appearing on U-DUB T-shirts are bold declarations of the school's drinking culture, such as "Win or Lose, We still Booze," or "Wisconsin: You're among drunks".

"I met with Ervin Cox, an assistant dean, and he was really cool," Sandgren said. "He told me to give some thought to how we're representing the university. We are a party school, but we do have great academics here as well."

Interim Dean of Students Lori Berquam said for apparel businesses like U-DUB, going down the academic route is probably not an ideal selling point.

"Shirts and things like that do play to the fact that there is a drinking culture on campus," Berquam said. "Would I like to see them promote some other aspect of the university? Sure. But I don't think people would want to buy [those T-shirts]."

After her meeting with Cox, Sandgren said she chose to make a few changes to her company's website. Along with placing orders on the site, students can submit stories, photos or suggestions for apparel designs.

Hits on the U-DUB web site have more than doubled since a mass e-mail from Net Nerds was sent to students advertising a T-shirt design contest, another U-DUB creative promotion that Sandgren said she is excited about.

Reaching students, according to Sandgren, is a matter of giving them something they want to do, read or wear.

"Through Dec. 8, students can log on to the site, and design a creative phrase for a shirt or just vote on other designs," she said. "When the contest is over, we'll print the winning design, and the designer will get several free ones for him or herself and friends. We'll also sell apparel with the new design."

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Anonymous (November 28, 2006 @ 11:00am):

nice rack though

Anonymous (November 28, 2006 @ 11:54am):

Only one problem the University of Washington has gone by U-Dub for at least 30 years if not longer. I don't recall anybody calling Wisconsin U-Dub back in the 80's, so while I applaud the marketing effort I do not wish to blur the line between the two University's. UW, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin - Madison may not have the same flair as U-Dub but I am not willing to share a distinctive phrase just as I am not willing to change the mascot from a Badger to a Pirate because it might sound cooler.

Go Badgers!!!

Anonymous (November 28, 2006 @ 12:36pm):

wow. well i guess everyone is starting their own tshirt making business. sconnie.com and now u-dubs. i guess i just need to think of a catchy name and sell t shirts about drinking. and the contest is just a ploy to get a creative t shirt they can sell many of since they cant think of any themselves. i mean, "win or lose, we still booze?" lets come up with something original.