UT Dallas Extols Its Differences with New Marketing Campaign

With a goal to differentiate itself from other universities by emphasizing its awareness of young people's desire for a better world for themselves and their future, The University of Texas at Dallas last month launched a new marketing campaign: The Future Demands Different.

The campaign emphasizes the University's future-focused degree programs, culture, modern campus and blending of business and arts education with the traditional science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) foundation of the 30,000-student university. All of this is intended to further position UTD as one of the nation's most distinctly different universities.

"We are certainly carving our own path," said UTD President Richard C. Benson. "We believe we fill a need in higher education for those who recognize that the current generation of college-age students and those following them are looking to establish meaningful careers for themselves while also helping create a better world in which to live."

The new campaign, which will focus heavily on North Texas, also will include advertising in other Texas metropolitan areas and Oklahoma - where UTD offers tuition discounts on its out-of-state pricing. UTD commercials will be shown on television newscasts and on streaming platforms beginning in November, and during Dallas Mavericks broadcasts beginning in January.

The campaign also will feature the University's first broadly distributed commercial. The new spot features current UTD students, whose comments about their university serve as the narration.

"Our students define our university and ultimately set us apart," Benson said. "It's appropriate for them to voice the commercial."

Evolving from the vision of its Texas Instruments founders more than a half-century ago, the University continues to be one of the fastest-growing doctoral-granting universities in the country. Enrollment has increased 60% in a decade, with almost 31,000 students enrolled last fall.

In the latest U.S. News and World Report rankings, UTD rose six spots in a year to No. 109 among national universities, the third-highest ranking among Texas public universities. Since 2016, the year Benson became president, the University has risen 31 spots in the U.S. News rankings among all U.S. universities - both public and private.