Along with the funny Super Bowl ads airing Sunday, there’ll be a unique commercial making its debut – shown only in Maine – that will feature a talking donkey.

It will feature a junior high school boy who’s supposed to be doing his homework, but is playing video games instead.

Suddenly, a real donkey appears in the room. Norm the talking donkey tries to convince the teen to do his work, that he’s got to be ready for college.

The boy isn’t interested.

So with a bray, the donkey kicks him out of his chair, out of the video game and across the room. As the boy lands an algebra book falls in his hand. A pair of underwear falls on his head.

An announcer tells viewers to go to “kickstartmaine.com and find a college that’s right for you. You’ll get a free Norm T-shirt.”

Norm the donkey was created by The VIA Group in Portland with collaboration from Animal, creators of Taco Bell’s Chihuahua and the California Milk Cows.

The ad was made for Maine’s Kick Start Campaign, a statewide initiative to get seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders ready for college, careers and citizenship. Money to pay for the campaign came from the National Governors Association and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Kick Start is part of the Maine Readiness Initiative, headed by Kay Rand, a former top aide to Gov. Angus King who now works for Bernstein Shur Government Solutions in Portland.

The purpose of the donkey ad “is to direct kids to a new student Web site,” Rand said. “If they go to that Web site, take the college-finder quiz and submit that to the Web host, they’ll get the free Norm T-shirt and college planning guide.”

Both the shirt and guide are designed to appeal to seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders, Rand said. The guide tells kids what they have to do in grades seven, eight, nine and 10 to get ready for college.

Several focus groups of eighth-graders were used to help decide which television ad to air during the Super Bowl, Rand said. The students overwhelmingly chose the donkey, she said.

Like the Taco Bell ad, the donkey talks through computer animation. “Our hope is kids will get the message they need to take their high school career seriously if they want to go to college, and that college is an opportunity for every Maine student.”

Maine lags behind other New England states in the number of high school graduates who continue to college. And the number graduating from college is even lower, Rand said.

“Do you know that only one in four current high school freshmen will graduate from college?” Rand said. Only one in four will graduate from a two-year program or a bachelor’s degree program within three years and six years, respectively, she said.

Auburn Middle School Principal Kathleen Cutler said she welcomes the Super Bowl ad to bring attention to middle and high school students getting ready for college. Her school begins talking to students about college in the seventh grade.

That “starts their minds thinking” about what kind of college they’ll attend, Cutler said.

Lewiston Middle School aspirations coordinator Billie Jo Brito said her students have recently begun using the Kick Start Web site. “It’s outstanding,” she said, adding it has clever pop-ups that keep kids engaged.

Encouraging middle school students to plan for college is “critical,” Brito said. “We’re no longer the society where a high school diploma is good enough. We have to change that mindset.”

Norm will air for several weeks after the Super Bowl.

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