VCU Adcenter meets Web 2.0 meets DEFCON 1, PETA stands down

Richmond TimesDispatch

Police knocking at the door. Angry calls from animal activists. A prominent university program rattled.

That's been part of the fallout from what was otherwise a routine class assignment at Virginia Commonwealth University's Adcenter, the No. 1-ranked graduate advertising program in the country.

It all began last week when Mike Lear, an adjunct professor at the Adcenter, gave his creative-thinking class an assignment involving his dog.

"Your assignment is to make my 6-year-old pug, Oscar, famous," Lear said, as part of written instructions to his class.

Then things exploded.

A user of MySpace, a social-networking Web site, made a blog posting that said he was going to kill Oscar online this week.

The user identified himself as Jason, a 19-year-old male -- a swinger -- from Richmond.

Around the globe, through the reach of the Internet, people began expressing concern and outrage about the possible online slaughter of Oscar.

The Adcenter, located in the 1300 block of East Main Street, began receiving calls from animal activists and others expressing alarm, administrators said.

Richmond police were contacted, and dispatched officers to the Adcenter.

The article gives the quasi-lurid details. (No animals were harmed in the making of this non-ad.)

Rick Boyko, ex-Ogilvy Poohbah who's been the managing director of the school for a couple of years, had this to say:

But did the furor over the posting make Oscar famous, after all?

Boyko: "It made him infamous. Whoever did it got an 'F.'"

Yeah, very derivative:



Feeling ambitious? Here's Mike Lear's assignment

Make this dog famous.

Your assignment is to make my 6-year-old-pug, Oscar, famous. Oscar is a pure-bred, American-Kennel-Club-registered pug. He sheds. . . . He eats organic dog food. He is deaf. He is weird, can't explain it, he just is.

He does no tricks that I am aware of. He likes to nap. He snores.

The rules: You cannot harm my dog in any way. You cannot kill my dog. And your idea cannot hinge upon either. You may borrow my dog for a photo shoot if absolutely necessary. But I will allow you to use another pug dog besides Oscar. But it does need to be a pug for consistency.

As in past classes, you must create something. It may be a poster, a photograph, a story, or [an] idea board.

You may think, "Hmmm, I smell an ad campaign." And I could see how you would arrive there. But please, DON'T do ads. Have an idea. A huge, umbrella of an idea that would propel this little dog into the lights of our public.

Make Oscar famous. Your creative life depends on it.

Hmm, I like topical--a clash of civilizations narrative, evil empires 'n stuff. Meet Anakitty Dogwalker. No... Boba Feline