Maroon 5, Adam Levine’s T-shirt and a university’s marketing moment
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette No, he’s not an alum. Officials at Clarion University could not say Monday if Adam Levine, member of the band Maroon 5, has ever set foot on the state university campus about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Just the same, the pop star, by virtue of his choice of T-shirt for Sunday night’s Teen Choice Awards, has become Clarion’s “big man on campus,” providing the state-owned university with a marketing moment during the network-televised awards show.
Almost instantly after he appeared onstage, a blue Clarion Tshirt partly visible beneath a collared shirt, the school’s Facebook page was inundated. By Monday afternoon, responses topped 3,000, including more than 1,800 shares.
“Omg!!! My man crush and my university woot woot!!! Can someone please tell me why he’s wearing that shirt?” wrote Meghan Hartle, who studied speech pathology at Clarion.
“Better than Slippery Rock,” posted another, apparently taking playful aim at the nearby state university whose quirky name helps raise its profile well beyond Pennsylvania.
During the ceremony, broadcast on Fox live from Los Angeles, the band received the Decade Award.
David Love, a Clarion spokesman, said the student activities board sent Mr. Levine a T-shirt awhile back.
It did so as part of an invitation for the band to perform at Clarion’s spring CampusFest.
“That hasn’t happened to date,” Mr. Love said. “But he kept the shirt.” Not that Clarion minds. Building a college’s image and visibility is a methodical and expensive undertaking, but schools know a sudden spike in visibility — good or bad — can come from just about anywhere, from a deep run in the NCAA basketball tournament to a graduate who suddenly makes news.
In this case, it came from the unexpected appearance of Mr. Levine wearing a blue retro shirt with a depiction of Ernie the Eagle, Clarion’s mascot.
“It’s great when someone high-profile in a positive way wears something that says Clarion, especially somebody who resonates with our desired audience, which is prospective students,’’ Mr. Love said.
Clarion, one of 14 member universities in the State System of Higher Education, enrolls about 5,200 students.
Mr. Love said the Clarion store no longer carries the shirt but now plans on reordering one similar to it. “We think people might be interested a shirt like the one Adam wore.”
Of course, the appearance also opens up the school to some wry humor, as exhibited by one of the Facebook commenters: “How long until they start calling him asking for money?”