While riding the subway yesterday, I saw this ad for “Colossal University”:
The text of the ad reads:
“STUDENT NUMBER 237, YOUR TEACHER WILL SEE YOU NOW.”
Student by number — just one of the many benefits you’ll experience at Colossal U. For more, visit us at www.colossalu.com.
If this ad gives you a sense of deja vu, it’s probably because you remember the viral “fake ad” campaign for Obay, which looked like ads for obedience drugs but was actually a campaign for Ontario’s community colleges:
I assumed it was another campaign for Ontario community colleges, and when I went to colossalu.com, it appeared to be that way until the “fake-out” faded and the real site appeared: it’s a campaign to promote Algoma University, a liberal arts and sciences school in Sault Ste. Marie affiliated with Laurentian University in Sudbury.
It’s an interesting approach, and hey, it worked on me — I’d never even heard of Algoma before seeing that ad.
With a special note for Martha-Ann Alito, who needs a reminder which way is up…
It took a tiebreaking round against the other remaining competitor, but at the end of…
Once a year, the Glazer Children’s Museum holds what I like to call “Grown-Up Night,”…
Need context? It’s a recent internet debate, and you can find out more in this…
View Comments
I enjoy that in their list of 'noted alumni', they include someone who "is currently employed as an elementary school teacher with the Huron Superior Catholic School Board in Sault Ste. Marie."
That's all it takes to make the list of noted alumni at Algoma? They weren't kidding about it being small!
@Robin: I suppose it makes any student's odd of ending up on the "Noted Alumni" list that much better. I'm up against some stiff competition from some of my cohort from Crazy Go Nuts University, one of whom is CNN's Ali Velshi.
Algoma is no longer affiliated with Laurentian, it is an independent university now.
Admittedly the alumni page needs some work, we have had quite a few pretty well known scientists, writers (and hockey players, many of the Grevyhounds end up going to school at Algoma while they play in the OHL) etc start their academic careers at Algoma through here through the years.
We have some unique programmes though, such as Community Economic and Social Development and a Master's degree in Computer Games Design. Psychology, while not unique of course, is what the cool kids take though...
I would be remiss if I did not mention that our school, along with UOIT runs an international video game conference called FuturePlay. So, we have our fingers in many pies if you will. If you want to find out about FP you can get updates at my blog.
And another is me, who provides very little competition at all :^)
Hey, thanks for posting this.
I am one of the creative guys who made this campaign happen and it's always great to see our work discussed. This particular campaign based on pretty solid research, one of the main findings was a lack of recognition of Algoma University outside of Sault Saint Marie - you observed yourself that you've never heard of them, which is a fairly typical reaction.
We didn't have the budget to take on the big universities on their own turf, we'd be out-spent in no time at all. So instead we decided to get people's attention by poking fun at the idea of an education that doesn't recognize people as people and communicate the benefits of going to Algoma that way.
This ads are great! At first I was chocked with the idea of a university being like that, but after seeing the 3 different "benefits", I realized it had to be a joke. That made me go to the website and then find out about Algoma University. Great job!
hi there... i'm in a creative advertising program at seneca college and I'm doing an assignment on these 'phony' ads for our trends class. All I could come up with was the 'Obay' ads and the 'Colossal U' ads (both of which i loved... which is why i've chosen to do our trend-spotting assignment on them...)... can anyone think of any other ads that used this type of 'fake' advertising concept?
hey, another ad was the one nova scotia hasd to advertise their province, the pommergramite phone - the everything in one phone-..