The bu$ine$$ of Berry’s Heisman campaign

Eric Berry is a candidate for the Heisman in 2009. Those of us in this area already know this. What you might not know is how much money the University of Tennessee is spending on the campaign.

They’ve got catchy and well-written music videos, a commercial that’s a knock-off of the Geico caveman commercials, billboards and very well done web site to go along with the typical media mailings and other smaller touches.

Sounds like a lot, right? Probably cost a lot of money to do all of that, right?

If you guessed the UTAD spent more than $25,000 on all of that, you would be wrong. If you think they spent more than $15,000, you would be incorrect. They’ve only budgeted $10,000 for Berry’s bid and even that figure won’t be reached if certain benchmarks aren’t met. They might spend more if those benchmarks are met or exceeded- might being the key word. It’ll depend on the situation.

To this point, the University of Tennessee has only spent roughly $6,500, which doesn’t sound like a lot in today’s terms, especially when you factor in how much has been spent on college athletics in recent years.

The billboards were a bonus for the university’s “standard ad buy” for the year and most of the work on the campaign has been done by salaried employees, so costs have been kept low. Even the song and music videos were produced in-house.

The effect that small amount of money has had coupled with the wider coverage of Berry nationally is one that’s felt when Tennessee’s coaches enter a home. Without spending a lot of money and perhaps even without capturing a Heisman, Berry’s campaign will generate excitement on the recruiting trail.

“Obviously I would think that helps you tremendously in recruiting,” Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin said. “You want to go somewhere where you’re going to marketed when you do things right. I can’t think of a better guy to do it with than Eric, because he can handle it.”

The campaign is also helped out by all the national attention the Vols have received because of their head coach.

“I think it says a lot about the conference, the school and about what’s going on with us,” Kiffin said. “There’s a lot of energy around Tennessee football around the country with recruits and all the way down to eighth and ninth grade- the kids you’re going to be trying to recruit four years down the road.”

You’ve probably heard of athletics spokeswoman Tiffany Carpenter, but if you haven’t, you’ve no doubt been exposed to her work. She puts out fires, answers media questions and this year is running Berry’s campaign for the ultimate college football award on a tight budget. She is running a much more modern campaign than the university ran for Peyton Manning in the 1990s. Of course it’s a much more modern time. The strategy is different for this campaign than others at other schools. Technology has changed the way Heisman campaigns are run- at least on Rocky Top.

According to Sports Information Director Bud Ford, he would be surprised if his office spent more than $5,000 on Manning’s campaign in 1997 when he finished second- to a defensive player.  That figure includes postage! It was less viral and more of a old-school campaign for Manning.  The strategy included notebooks and mailings with no internet videos and social network opportunities to play with.

But, how did Tennessee arrive at the idea of running a viral campaign for Berry instead of a more traditional campaign?

“It was looking at trends,” Carpenter said. “The people we’re looking at Social media is really big right now, especially with teenagers and 20-somethings and we were looking at a group that we really don’t have a target list on.”

A viral campaign works like it sounds- a virus. The idea of a viral marketing campaign is to spread the message from one person to another either by word of mouth or by using social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. The internet is a huge player in the Berry campaign- but how many Heisman voters are in the social media demographic? The schools are at a disadvantage because that’s information they don’t have access to when planning a campaign.

“They don’t give you a Heisman voter list, so we’re trying to find a way where we could create enough buzz for Eric Berry, who’s considered a dark horse candidate because he’s not a quarterback or an offensive player,” Carpenter said. “We’re trying to find a way to get people to talk about Eric Berry. ‘Who is this guy Eric Berry?’ To check him out because they’re interested in what they’ve seen on him.”

Berry is, indeed, a dark horse candidate. ESPN’s website featured a poll last wek of a group of college football experts at the network and two defensive players made the list: South Carolina’s Eric Norwood and Berry. Amongst all the offensive standouts on the page, the two SEC defensemen were the only players without links to more information.

As a dark horse, is the nation taking the campaign seriously? Officials at Tennessee believe it is.

“You can look at that way that they’re not taking it seriously. I got a call today from ESPN wanting to know if they could show our videos during the game Saturday,” Carpenter said in an interview last week. “(ESPN’s College) Game Day called me last week wanting copies of the videos, CBS called Florida week wanting copies of the videos. I think they are taking it seriously and I think they’ve perked up about it because we’ve got a lot of national media talking about the campaign and that was our goal. “

Berry isn’t likely to win the award or even be invited the ceremony, but Tennessee is committing funds and man-hours to the campaign anyway. It’s impressed Kiffin.

“It’s big time,” he said. “It shows our university’s commitment to when players come here and do things right as student athletes and they perform well that we do promote them. We do give back to them and go the extra mile for them.”

But, what if Berry gets an invitation to New York or what if he wins the Heisman?

“It would be phenomenal,” Kiffin said. “We had three guys in four years (win the Heisman) at (Southern Cal) and that’s still paying dividends. Those kids now, that were in eighth grade at the time, for four or five years, they’ve wanted to go to S.C.”

Kiffin’s USC reference included quarterbacks Carson Palmer (2002 winner) and Matt Leinart (2004) and running back Reggie Bush (2005)- and their awards are still resulting in players trickling in to the program.

Kiffin said a Heisman victory for Berry would do the same thing for Tennessee.

“Anytime something like that can happen, it sets up a great future,” Kiffin said.

ESPN.com Heisman Watch List, updated, below: