Colleges Ontario conducts Obay campaign
By Adnews Staff
Toronto-based Colleges Ontario has begun an advertising campaign aimed at parents. The campaign urges parents not to discourage their children from attending a college rather than a university. The initiative began with a teaser campaign several weeks ago. The creative purported to advertise a fictional drug called Obay that would prevent children from thinking for themselves. The full campaign began this week. "Our research shows that there is a lack of factual information and awareness of both the programs available at the college level, and the economic and personal benefits associated with them," said Linda Franklin, president and CEO of Colleges Ontario. "Our goal with Obay is to use a tongue-in-cheek approach to begin to address this awareness issue, starting with parents, the group our research showed has strong influence when it comes to decision-making around post-secondary education. The message is to step back and find out what your children really want, and then look at all the postsecondary options together." Colleges Ontario is an advocacy organization representing the province's 24 colleges of applied arts and technology.