Seven minutes before the “The All-American Halftime Show,” Turning Point USA ran a one-minute ad sponsored by Hillsdale College. The ad, titled “Learn Like Charlie,” was also uploaded to the college’s social media pages.
The ad opens with images from Charlie Kirk’s last event at Utah Valley University last year before playing clips of Kirk speaking at or about Hillsdale, concluding with an invitation to “pick up the mic.” The ad displays the website LearnLikeCharlie.com.
The website lists several of the college’s online courses, including Constitution 101 and The Genesis Story. It credits Kirk with “studying the Classics, the American Founding, and the Bible through Hillsdale College’s free online courses.”
“Start with the Bible, read the classics, and study the founding of America,” College President Larry Arnn once told Kirk, according to his funeral remarks. The TPUSA founder would go on to complete 31 Hillsdale courses before his assassination last fall.
TPUSA’s All-American Halftime Show ran for 35 minutes, finishing with Michigan-native Kid Rock’s performance. The show was marketed as an alternative to Bad Bunny’s NFL halftime performance. Shortly after the show ended, Hillsdale’s X account wished “congratulations to @TPUSA on an incredible All-American Halftime Show. Over 5 million tuned in on YouTube alone! We were proud to be a small part of it.”
According to the post, TPUSA’s halftime show received more than 5 million live views while the NFL halftime show counted more than 130 million. In the nearly two weeks since airing, the show’s video has 38 million impressions across all social media platforms.
Andrew Kolvet, co-host of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” applauded Hillsdale on the ad, saying “I think it should be nominated for top 10 commercials from the night” in a X post. Other media personalities have also reacted to the ad, with CNN host Scott Jennings featuring it on “The Scott Jennings Show.”
Jeremiah Regan, executive director of online learning for Hillsdale, said the college has seen an increase in online course enrollment since the ad aired, and expects more in the coming weeks.
“The mission of the college is to educate all who wish to learn,” Regan said. “There are many people who have not yet heard of Hillsdale College — putting a precise number on that is difficult — but we welcome anyone who learns of Hillsdale’s online learning through affinity with Charlie or association with TPUSA.”
Jonathan Hall, vice president of marketing at Hillsdale, also said this sentiment in an email to The Collegian.
“We are striving to become the best college in America and simultaneously teach mass audiences of truth-seeking Americans from the same core teaching, philosophy, the rigorous and dangerous classic liberal arts that embodies the idea that strength rejoices in the challenge,” Hall said in his email. “We want to extend our mission to all who wish to learn, developing minds and improving hearts.”
Hall said the ad was inspired by a favorite ad of Kirk.
“The commercial was originally inspired by the Gatorade’s ‘Be Like Mike’ commercial that Charlie was a big fan of, growing up in Chicago,” Hall said. “It’s an iconic spot that showed the heroic nature of young kids wanting to play basketball like Jordan. Generation X, our bullseye growth audience, loves the nostalgic connection from their days dreaming of being like Mike.”
Kirk’s legacy is tied to Hillsdale, Hall said.
“You can see in the spot that Charlie’s advice to others who want to think and lead like him was to learn the classic liberal arts like he was doing at Hillsdale College,” Hall said. “It’s literally his voice being amplified to the work. The TPUSA team said they loved the spot and hoped millions of people start to engage in the learning program.”
The marketing department plans to continue its “Learn Like Charlie” program, Hall said.
“We will be driving this all year with TPUSA socials, podcasts, events and much more,” he said. “The marketing challenge now is to build awareness of the offering and make it easy for audiences to learn from us in all forms of modern-day teaching platforms.”
Juan Dávalos, Hillsdale’s executive director of brand management, agreed in an email to The Collegian.
“We recently learned that about a third of current high school students do not plan to attend college,” he said. “What would the country look like in a few years if we could reach some of those students with the classical liberal arts and guide them to arm their minds against the confusion that pervades modern society? Through our online courses and campaigns like ‘Learn Like Charlie,’ the College can be a means of learning for millions of people.”
Dávalos hopes the new initiative will connect people to Kirk’s story.
“‘Learn Like Charlie’ is a campaign that we hope will inspire those who admired Charlie to follow in his footsteps and awaken that deep desire for learning that Charlie had,” he said. “The kind of leadership and knowledge Charlie demonstrated comes only through hard work that is intentionally chosen. In Charlie, we have an example for the nation of how to do that hard work and the effects of that hard work on the nation.”
The ad is not Hillsdale’s first entry into the Super Bowl arena. In 2017, the college ran an ad before and after Super Bowl LI titled “Freedom,” directing viewers to hillsdale.edu/freedom. The webpage now explores the legacy of Thomas Jefferson.
