UMass Lowell breaks out Harmabe promotion

If you want millennials to show up somewhere, it should involve any of the following: free food, free money, free stuff or viral memes. Well, UMass Lowell seems to understand that and went with the latter two in order to draw fans to one of their sporting events.

Yes, they used free stuff and memes? So yes, they made the meme into a real thing — if that makes sense. At their men’s soccer game Wednesday against Brown, let’s just say there was a promotion college kids really loved.

Yes, they gave away “mini Harambes” to their first 100 fans. I don’t know how the UMass Lowell men’s soccer team usually does on attendance, but I’m going to go ahead and say they probably handed all those things out. Now that’s genius marketing. I didn’t even know for sure UMass Lowell had a soccer team — until now.

For those of you who live under a rock, Harambe is the gorilla who was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo back in late May because a kid somehow made his way into Harambe’s living space.

I know the internet seems to love Harambe. But man, I don’t mean to criticize the state of Massachusetts, but they’re really hypocritical when it comes to him. UMass Amherst decided earlier this year kids couldn’t use Harambe jokes, labeling them micro-aggression. Oh, but it’s fine for the state of Massachusetts to then, in-turn, capitalize on the death of a gorilla to sell tickets. Regardless of how you feel about the whole situation, that’s some real hypocritical actions by the state of Massachusetts.

Just a hunch here: UMass Lowell probably started a major trend. If they can do it, then why can’t a bigger school with better athletics do the same thing? I’m sure they probably will — soon.

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