North Park University’s latest advertising campaign has steered away from mere slogans in favor of a more personalized approach, and this year it features several North Park students and their stories.

While the ad campaign’s primary aim is to increase recognition and visibility, it also aims at recruitment. “We wanted to have our students tell their stories, and tell their personal testimonies, rather than us developing a generic message,” said Lilian Samaan, the director of External Relations and the driving force behind the campaign.

There are ads on CTA buses and at shelters, on the El train and at El stations, and bulletin billboards at various locations. Additionally, and for the first time, there are banners on campus. “We take pride in our students, and we want to show them off,” said Samaan.

Although the campaign is primarily focused in the city of Chicago, there are some billboard bulletins in the suburbs of Arlington Heights and Gray’s Lake, as well as in Lake County. These billboards are targeted to graduate students, said Samaan, and the students featured on those billboards are chosen accordingly.

“What we want it [the campaign] to do is basically tell people what North Park is really about, that it’s about our students, and their stories, and that it’s about the student experience at the University,” said Samaan.

The students who were chosen to represent North Park in this ad campaign were picked carefully. “We looked for students that have a story, students that are accessible, students that represent ethnic diversity, and students that are faithful to the North Park mission and to their personal mission as well,” said Samaan.

For Xiaozhe Liang, a transfer student from China, the invitation to be a poster girl for North Park came as a surprise. A classmate connected with the office of External Relations asked her if she was interested in getting her picture taken for the ad campaign, and Liang agreed.

Liang’s story for the campaign is about her experience as a Resident Assistant (RA) at the Park North Apartments. Liang said the other RAs at Park North laughed when they found out that she was going to be featured, because they are all so diverse. “We have many cultures in our group, a Mexican-American, an African-American… we all could have been featured,” Liang said with a laugh.

Liang hasn’t quite gotten used to seeing her face around campus and around Chicago. “It is sooo weird,” she said. She talked about a time when she was taking a train that had a banner with her face on it. “One day, I was on the El, on the red line. It was really crowded, and the person standing next to me is like, ‘Is that you?’ And I was like, ‘Um, no, I don’t think that’s me,’” Liang laughed.

Mike Mirza, another featured student, said he laughs every time he sees an ad of himself, because he looks so serious. Mirza, a photographer with a passion for social justice, also had an El experience with a North Park ad. “I was staring at my face across the tracks while waiting for a train,” he said. “I couldn’t decide if I hoped somebody would notice or not, but I definitely wasn’t going to point it out to a random person and say, ‘Hey, you see that guy? Well…’”

Both Liang and Mirza are flattered to be part of North Park’s campaign. “I was truly honored [to be chosen],” said Mirza. Liang, too, was pleased. “I made sure to have someone take my picture with one of my banners, because otherwise my family wouldn’t believe me!” she said.

The purpose of the campaign, both online and around Chicago, is to enhance recognition for North Park University, and Samaan said that it is working. One way to measure success with ad campaigns is by the amount of traffic the University website receives. “The number of page visits, for instance, in two weeks we’ve had between 800 and 1000 clicks on the My Story page,” she said. “Generally, the North Park home page visits have jumped for the first two or three weeks since we’ve launched the campaign.”

The online aspect of the ad campaign, called My Story, was created by two North Park University alumni, Lucas Larson and Eric Staswick, and is overseen by Samaan.

Through the My Story aspect of the campaign, students are able to talk about their experiences at North Park University, and what it means to them to be “distinctive, intentional, and purposeful.”

“We really encourage more students to be involved; we’ll at least feature their faces on the website,” said Samaan. “It’s an opportunity for students to share some of their visual artwork, some quotes about North Park; it has to be specific to a positive perception of their experience at North Park.”

Students who are interested in submitting their story should click here. Submissions are due by midnight on February 28, 2010.

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