VCU’s Adcenter moves beyond pug debacle

An Adcenter student is alleged to have posted the MySpace Web page threatening to kill a dog that attracted international attention. Pam Lepley, director of University News Services, said the student will face charges through the university judicial system.

“The Adcenter students were asked to come forward if they had done it, and this student never came forward,” Lepley said Friday.

If found guilty, the student could face expulsion or other penalties. An internal investigation traced the posting to a school computer, which is a violation of the VCU Computer and Network Resources Use Policy. The posting led to an investigation by the Richmond Police Department cyber crimes unit. Lepley said the Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney does not intend to press charges.

Despite the controversy, professor Mike Lear, who assigned his class to make his pug, Oscar, famous, said his students did a great job.

“Most of the kids ignored the negative side of it,” Lear said after his Thursday class.

The idea was to help them with a different approach to marketing.

Instead of saying, ‘How do I sell this to people?’ say ‘How do I make this famous?’ Lear explained.

Students were allowed to present idea boards or actual materials, Lear said. The only stipulation was that they couldn’t harm or threaten to harm the dog. Projects included videos, music and flier campaigns. About 25 percent of students turned to the Internet, using viral marketing to spread the word about Oscar, Lear said.

Students convinced Internet celebrity Lara Simms to write a song medley about Oscar, which had over 1,000 hits on YouTube.com. Also uploaded to YouTube is the video “Pug Life,” an illustrated story of Oscar’s life in Kingston, Jamaica.

One student outlined why Oscar should replace Rodney as VCU’s mascot, while another founded a lost dog charity with Oscar as the spokesman. There were also Oscar-branded snore strips. In the assignment, Lear told his classes that his dog snores.

Jacob Lake, a first-year student at the Adcenter, created bacon-scented air fresheners.

He planned to plant them in parks to “get the dogs interested.”

“Hopefully the owner would query what they were looking at and find a bacon air freshener with Oscar’s picture on it,” Lake said.

The concept impressed Lear.

“The idea to stop people with dogs with something that smells like bacon is incredible,” he said.

Rick Boyko, Adcenter managing director, said the page at MySpace.com/jasonlives88 would be used as an example of bad work.

“The VCU Adcenter is very upset about this incident and will use Oscar as an example of what not to do for classes in the future,” Boyko said Thursday in a press release.