This article examines the development of a university's advertising campaign through the discursive justifications of the university's communications office, its deans, and the advertising agency involved in the process. Empirical material is gathered from a three-year-long ethnographic research. Drawing on the notion of floating signifier, we explore how neoliberal and humanist Discourses about universities are played out in the negotiations between the actors involved in an advertising campaign, showing that seemingly opposing ideological stances are not completely isolated from one another.