News release of the year
By Macleans.ca | February 25th, 2008 | 9:12 pm
Zing
Colleges Ontario put out a news release at 11am this morning about its "Obay" viral marketing campaign. The campaign involves advertisements for a fictional mind-control medicine which stops young people from thinking for themselves. The goal of the campaign is to encourage parents to stop discouraging their children from pursuing a college education.
The Colleges Ontario campaign opened up a great opportunity for the Canadian Federation of Students which sent out their own release entitled "Students to Colleges: "Obay" the Law."
Now, that’s a news release.
Hey Joey. Thanks for the info. I actually spotted one of those ads on my own and was confused. I mean, I got the point, but it was too slick to be guerrilla culture-jamming and too crazy to be real. So it’s nice to know what was really going on now.
Note the bottom of that press release, that they have someone available for interviews. Seriously, get out there and interview her. Worthwhile investment of your time, I’d think.
Hey Jeff, I actually saw the ad in the bus station in Ottawa Monday morning and wondered what it was all about too. (I was in a zombie state adn thought wow, that is some scary stuff.)
In terms of follow-up, I’m hitting the books for the next couple of days – everything was put on hold when I decided to cover the budget. I think I “studied” more for the budget lockup than I ever have for an exam.
I would love to get behind the scenes of the campaign, but timing just doesn’t work.