Larger than life photos of some of St. Thomas’ familiar faces have appeared on billboards for Davanni’s Pizza and Hot Hoagies as part of the university’s effort to strengthen community relations.

Members of the UST Dance Club, professors and coaches have recently been featured on Davanni’s billboards and commercials in the university’s partnership with local businesses like Davanni’s and Coffee Bené.

The university’s recent dabbling with this kind of public advertisement started with an idea from Tim Huberty, Davanni’s marketing director.

“I originally wanted to put the Tommie Mascot on the billboard … and for some reason you can’t put mascots on a billboard,” Huberty said. “Since I couldn’t do Tommie, I was asked if I would be interested in doing John Tauer or Ruth Sinn.”

St. Thomas basketball coaches John Tauer and Ruth Sinn had their photos taken at the Davanni’s site on the corner of Cleveland and Grand avenues. In a matter of weeks, their images were displayed at large in the Twin Cities area.

In most cases, the ideas for billboards generate from customers who contact Davanni’s and ask to be featured, Huberty said.

“Usually, it’s about 90 percent of the time they (those who want to be on the billboard) approach us, and then I’ll develop an idea from there,” Huberty said. “There is no hard and fast rule, we just have these billboards every month, and it’s a great sales builder for us.”

The billboards typically run the same ad for four weeks and then get taken down or moved to a new location. Davanni’s has a contract with Clear Channel Communications and uses 10 billboards per month in any of about 40 locations in the metro area that are available at the time.

“We love St. Thomas. They are some of our biggest customers,” Huberty said. “Any way that we can promote St. Thomas, we want to do that.”

Communication and journalism professor Carol Bruess will be the next face of Coffee Bené in April, and she said her chance to be on a billboard came from her being a huge fan and frequent customer.

“It’s all about saying, I love Davanni’s, I love Coffee Bené, I love this company,” Bruess said.

The partnership with Davanni’s and Coffee Bené was the stimulation of a community relationship because St. Thomas and the companies are mutually important to each other, Bruess said.

“In this location, we have a synergetic relationship. We all see the value in that relationship, and we want to maintain it,” Bruess said. “I really think that’s what it says, that we value one another.”

Some students think that Davanni’s may be advertising to selective audiences with its billboard campaign.

“Using students as advertisements for Davanni’s could be bad for their business because it may give the impression that it is only for college students,” freshman Morgan Alexander said.

Billboard advertisements have not been the only form of publicity for St. Thomas. UST Dance Club was featured in a Davanni’s commercial last spring, which still airs periodically.

Junior Ellen Pappas, co-president of Dance Club, said Davanni’s had an advertising campaign last spring based on customer favorites. The campaign featured a slogan that represented what the customer specifically enjoyed about Davanni’s. The Dance Club’s “Davanni’s favorite” was fundraising.

Pappas said the experience was well-organized and entertaining.

“We just showed up at Davanni’s at like 5 p.m. on a Tuesday. They had cameras and everything set up in one of those back party rooms,” Pappas said. “They just gave us our lines … it was really professional and just super fun.”

Senior Erin Al Zaher, co-president of UST Dance Club, said the conversation about appearing in the ad started when the club asked Davanni’s for help with a fundraiser.

“We were kind of asking them for help and… they kind of turned around and offered to do something for us that was really cool in exchange,” Al Zaher said. “It’s really kind of working together to make the best of both options.”

Zach Zumbusch can be reached at zumb8499@stthomas.edu.