When a Hollywood celebrity sought to reach 1 million Twitter followers, the University of South Florida Polytechnic saw an opportunity for some creative marketing that would draw attention to its Twitter page.

Twitter is a free social networking service that lets its users send and read other users' updates, known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters that are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users, known as followers, who have subscribed to them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Messaging Service or external applications.

Earlier this year, USF Poly became the first campus in the USF system to set up a Twitter account, using it to reinforce the "Get Weird" campaign launched by VP and CEO Marshall Goodman. The "Get Weird" messaging is highly focused on USF Poly's students and prospective students, and research indicates that Twitter is one of that generation's preferred communication tools.

Even before the campus site was launched, USFP Associate Librarian Catherine Lavallée-Welch had started a Twitter stream for the USFP Library, and Goodman has encouraged faculty and staff to explore multiple tools to connect with students and prospective students.

Thus, the campus was not surprised last week when the Twittersphere began buzzing about a budding, good-natured rivalry. Ashton Kutcher, movie star and Twitter aficionado, and CNN announced a race to see whose accounts would become the first Twitter account in history to attract one million followers. The winner, it was agreed, would donate prize money to charity.

Kutcher, already one of the most popular celebrity tweeters, used Twitter to attract followers. CNN, predictably, used its Twitter stream as well as its popular website to solicit support.

Leveraging Ashton Kutcher, USF Poly used this digital billboard to generate Twitter buzz.

Then last week Lamar Advertising, a national outdoor advertising firm, saw the contest as a chance to spotlight the power of digital outdoor media and rolled out "Follow Ashton Kutcher" messaging across its national network of digital billboards.

"The moment I saw the 'Follow Ashton' digital board near our campus, I knew we had an opportunity to jump in," said David Steele, USFP's director of university advancement. "Marketing is 75 percent message and the other half mischief."

So on Friday, as students were about to start their weekends, USF Poly launched "Ignore Ashton Kutcher" boards that directed viewers to USFP's Twitter page: http://twitter.com/USFP.

Within hours, the campaign had generated tweets and re-tweets about the boards.

According to Steele, "This experiment generated more Twitter traffic than any topic we've tweeted so far. Our Twitter flock grew by about 20 percent over the 60 hours or so of the mini-campaign."

Within 24 hours after the "Ignore Ashton Kutcher" boards went up, two different Twitterers had transcribed the board's content into tweets, and a digital photograph of the board had been uploaded via TwitPic and posted to Twitter.

Feedback was universally positive. "Nice billboard campaign! Saw it on someone's TwitPic earlier this week and for myself last night," tweeted one local commuter. "USFP must have a gutsy and innovative marketing company. Nice new electronic billboard," tweeted another.

"This 'Ignore Ashton' mini-campaign wasn't just about adding followers," says Steele. "It was about stimulating a conversation and generating some buzz. Obviously, we're very happy with the result."

According to Carol Osborne, USFP marketing instructor, "Outdoor advertising should be entertaining and, if possible, esoteric. USFP's ‘Ignore Ashton" board certainly attains that. The non-twitterers may have scratched their heads. The few who don't know Ashton Kutcher may have indeed ignored the board. But the target audience, students and potential students, the high-tech community, and the innovators and early-adopters among us were sure to ponder, giggle, and maybe react. Marketing is one part promotion and it has to be nailed in this age of advertising clutter: attracting attention is the first step."

One tweet from a resident of Bartow, the city just south of USFP's campus, revealed the extent of the boards' success: "I laughed my [butt] off at the billboard near campus today." Said another, "LOL." (LOL is the common web abbreviation for "laughed out loud.")

Samantha Lane, USFP's assistant director of university relations, says digital technology made the timely campaign possible. "We find that Lamar's digital boards provide us with the kind of flexibility we need to reach important audiences. We can move quickly, as we did in this case, to take advantage of a new messaging opportunity. Years ago we could plan an entire year's messaging well in advance. Now, however, we have to be much more agile. As a result, much of our marketing effort is directed toward 'new media'. The research clearly indicates that's where our students and future students spend their time."

Goodman agrees: "Our ‘Get Weird' campaign is about recognizing reality -- that our stakeholders access and generate information differently than their parents did. And it's also about transforming reality, as we help our campus and our region transition into a new way of doing business, of relating to one other, and of making an impact on the world around us."

And what about Ashton Kutcher, the superstar whose online antics started it all?

According to Lane, Kutcher hasn't called yet. "But we'll be ready," she says. "I have a USF Poly golf shirt for him if he calls. Or, better yet -- if he tweets."

Twitter accounts referenced in this article: @USFP @aplusk @cnnbrk @LamarDigital @USFPlib
See also: http://poly.usf.edu/weird