The bridge near the College of Textiles will be closed to pedestrian traffic at 8:30 a.m. today as Creative Services and the University’s communications department approved the use of the bridge to produce a commercial.
Creative Services Interim Director Stephanie Hlavin said the commercial is a part of the University’s branding campaign and will debut during the ESPN broadcast of the football team’s September 3 contest against South Carolina.
Hlavin said the branding project, which introduced the Red Means Go campaign last year, was founded to help increase the University’s exposure.
“What we determined was that we didn’t really have a brand,” Hlavin said. “People didn’t know what was going on with N.C. State.”
The decision to film the commercial during the first day of classes was one that couldn’t be avoided, Hlavin said.
“It was timing,” Hlavin said. “There are numerous elements that have to be coordinated. It’s not ideal, it’s how the schedule worked out.”
Hlavin said she had also received calls about how closing off the bridge would affect students and professors on their way to class, but said using the bridge was a joint decision of the director of the commercial, Creative Services, the University’s communication department and an agency her team is working with.
“It was a collective decision with us and the director that it’s a visually striking location on campus,” Hlavin said. “It worked well with what we were trying to get out with the script. It wasn’t an arbitrariy choosing of the bridge.”
She said her department understands the commercial will inconvenience students, but said there weren’t any other viable options that would allow the commercial to be filmed on deadline and under budget.
“We’re sensitive to the fact that it’s the first day of classes,” Hlavin said. “It would have been great if it was the day before [classes began]–we even looked at the weekend. We tried to do our best to avoid it being this day, the first day of classes. There are a lot of factors–it’s hard to understand if you don’t understand the process. It takes a long time to get things done.”
Hlavin said no students were involved in the decision-making process, though she said Student Body President Jim Ceresnak attended a branding meeting at one point during the summer. She said she hopes students will see the inconvenience as minor in the face of creating a good spot for the University on national television.
As far as the September 3 deadline is concerned, Hlavin said these types of projects can’t be planned too far in advance, and also said it couldn’t be done during the summer because not enough students were on campus to film. The production involves casting students to appear in the commercial.
“You can’t plan these things so far out,” Hlavin said.
The 2009 football schedule was released by the ACC February 12.
Jessica Kvantas, a sophomore in fashion and textile management, said she wasn’t informed about the bridge closing and would need to wake up earlier to make it to her classes on time.
“I’m already commuting which means I’ll have to leave even earlier now because it’s going to take even longer to get to my class now.” Kvantas said. “I’m guessing I’m just going to have to walk a block over or something and walk around, I don’t really know.”
Kvantas said she would have been even more upset had she arrived without knowing of the change, since she likely would have been late for her first day of class, but said she was “annoyed” because no one from the University notified her of the closing. Though it will only affect a minority of the student population, she said it would have been better for students to have been a part of the decision making process or at least notified of the closing.
“It only really affects the students in Textiles, which isn’t that many compared to the rest of the school, but no one’s really going to know about it,” she said. “Students weren’t even involved in it. It would be nice to have more input on that.”
