The commercials recently developed by the University were not shown during Penn's NCAA Tournament game last Thursday because CBS decided not to broadcast any university advertisements during this year's tournament, Vice President of University Communications Lori Doyle said Friday.
Doyle wrote in an e-mail that the University sent a spot featuring singer and Penn alum John Legend - one of three commercials developed by Penn - about two weeks ago to CBS with the hopes that the network would run the ad during the Penn-Texas A&M; game Thursday.
Traditionally, CBS has offered both schools in each NCAA Tournament game a chance to run a 30-second spot promoting their university free of charge.
This year, however, the network is apparently not running ads for any schools in the tournament.
Representatives from CBS did not immediately return a request for comment.
"Although we're disappointed, we're not all that surprised," Doyle said. "Since we're not paying for the air time, there's never been any guarantee that the spots would run."
But Doyle said that Penn's commercials will not go to waste.
University Communications is asking the NBC network to run one or more of the ads during the upcoming Penn Relays.
Doyle added that the University has provided copies of the commercials to ESPNU and the YES Network for future use.
The University came under criticism last year after it failed to take advantage of the free-commercial opportunity offered by CBS, a spot that was worth about $300,000.
In response, the advertising agency Red Tettemer developed the three commercials showcasing the University's Ivy League image with the intention of showing them at this year's NCAA Tournament, as well as at other sporting events.
Aside from the spot featuring Legend, Red Tettemer also developed ads focusing on the life of John Heisman, the inventor of the forward pass in football, and NBC News chief foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell. All three are Penn alumni.
