OBAY, I tell you.......

[a_majoor]

A weird ad campaign is making the rounds:

http://torontoist.com/2008/02/the_ones_that_m.php

February 15, 2008
The Ones That Mother Gives You

2008_2_15Obay.jpg

At first we assumed it was Scientology. After all, who else has the money to produce and purchase space for such glossy anti-pharmaceutical ads, which have been popping up all over transit shelters and buses in Ontario and Montreal? Google wasn't much help, and their Blog Search just pointed us to other people as perplexed as we were. And poor spellers with domination fantasies.

Searches of domain registrations weren't particularly fruitful, especially after the artist behind Obay - The Commodiphile's Online Marketplace went out of his way to deny any association. Trademark searches with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office taught us there was once a deodorant called Obay, and no one has ever registered WhyBecauseISaidSo. (Although "Gools" at abovetopsecret.com explains that that doesn't necessarily mean these aren't legitimate trademarks.)

2008_2_15Obay2.jpgAttempts to get in contact with the Toronto chapter of the Church of Scientology didn't quite work out. But after we listened to the radio ad's associated phone message at 1-800-YOU-OBAY (audio file here, transcript here), we were fairly convinced they had nothing to do with this campaign.

We finally followed a lead from Accordion Guy Joey deVilla's blog and called up Rob Savage, the director of communications for Colleges Ontario, "an advocacy organization representing the province’s 24 colleges of applied arts and technology." He told us, "In terms of our own marketing stuff, we're going to be launching that in a few weeks." We didn't quite take this as denial, given that 24 Hours quotes a representative of CBS Outdoor (which manages the TTC—but not the shelter—ads) as saying that "The next phase will be revealed in a couple of weeks." So we asked point blank if he knew who was behind the ads, and he replied, "You're probably going to have to check around, I guess." So we next tried the Ontario College Application Service, whose media guy was out of the office Friday.

Returning to the discussion on a popular Toronto tech community, we were able to track down the origin of deVilla's source and confirm (with reasonable confidence on our part) that the responsible parties are "Ontario Colleges [which] had put together their money to run an ad campaign." This may or may not be cryptically corroborated by some cached text on Google exclaiming, "I saw this on the bus yesterday. It’s the first part of a two part ad for some Ontario college thing. If I see the second half, I’ll take a picture of it and upload. Enjoy. Obay!" Those sentences no longer appear on sam.cw.leung, which either means Sam was mistaken or revealed something he shouldn't have.

Top photo taken at the northeast corner of College and Queen's Park by Jonathan Goldsbie. Photo at right taken by slam525i outside the St. Joseph's Health Centre.

 

[DarkFire]

Obay, preventing your children from original thought since 2007!

 

[211RadOp]

I saw one of these today on a back of a bus. They have a new one now, they have covered the old poster with a sign that says something like "Thank god for universities that allow free thinking" or something along those lines.

 

[danchapps]

I can't believe I wasted my money going to college when they come out with crap like this. I took out a $20 000 OSAP loan, was denied extra funds when I was about to starve, and they come out with a crazy add campaign like this. Can I have some of my money back please??? (I'm just ranting and don't actually expect to see anything in return for this waste of money)

 

[Redeye]

I can't believe I wasted my money going to college when they come out with crap like this. I took out a $20 000 OSAP loan, was denied extra funds when I was about to starve, and they come out with a crazy add campaign like this. Can I have some of my money back please??? (I'm just ranting and don't actually expect to see anything in return for this waste of money)

OSAP and the Ontario Colleges have nought to do with each other.

 

[danchapps]

Not directly, but my OSAP money went to my college. I see a connection there. It just frustrates me to see what appears to me a wasteful ad campaign. Why run 2 sets of ads when 1 would suffice. Surely you can see where I'm coming from right?

 

[Redeye]

To be honest, not really.  I don't see what colleges marketing has to do with OSAP.  As far as ad campaigns go that's a pretty neat way to get attention - and it really is one ad in two phases - they would have purchased the ad as one item (since it's two parts of the same thing - not two independent campaigns.  In particular, colleges are trying to raise awareness to parents that they are a solid alternative to universities.  In fact, my wife went back to school to finish her university degree she had abandoned, and in hindsight we both wish she had just gone to college instead and caught up the degree later as she would have been in a better position to get a job.  In terms of how much they spent, I would imagine it was a relatively inexpensive campaign (key being relatively) to keep enrolment up (and thereby funding).  It was a simple but eyecatching campaign that I think probably got a lot of people talking.  Weird - but that's the idea.  Better than the billboards my university was spending tons of money on that really didn't make any sense nor draw much interest.

 

[c_canuk]

I don't get it...

Are they using college funds to try to turn people away from drugging up their kids with ritilan instead of teaching them self dicipline, then kudos except they are way out of their lanes.

if it's a marketing campaign to increase enrollment, fire anyone who came up with this, soonest.

As for free thinking in college, not when I went, the administration was worse than the administration at university.

The student council brought up the fact that the speed bumps were not properly engineered and were damaging vehicles. The administrations response was to double the amount of them and claim that they were needed to slow down speeders when you can't even go walking speed in a 10km/h zone with out totalling your car.

The administration started threatining our class with removing our after hours computer time for slowing down the network, we responded there was a mix of 10 and 100 mbps cards that was slowing the network to 10, we aren't doing anything wrong, it's just that everything was on hubs and one single 10 mbps card slows the whole network down.  They respond with letters threatening expulsion and accusing us of "hacking" the network

yeah lots of free throught there.

I have been in 4 different schools, 1 university and 1 college, I've yet to find an administration that values free thought.

 

[Gunner98]

"I have been in 4 different schools, 1 university and 1 college..."

Huh, is this some new-age free thinking math 4= 1+1?

 

[Panzer Grenadier]

"I have been in 4 different schools, 1 university and 1 college..."

Huh, is this some new-age free thinking math 4= 1+1?

I think primary and high schools is what he was referring too.  I hope... :

 

[c_canuk]

I think primary and high schools is what he was referring too.  I hope... :

Yes I was.

I was referring to 4 different schools followed by some university and completing a tech school program, in which dealing with the administrative structure at all 6 facilities was a drain on my soul.

Thank you for the benefit of the doubt.


EDIT: to correct typo

 

[Gunner98]

Public school and high schools that are publicly funded are not designed to encourage free thinking.  Free thinkers generally go to private schools or reform schools.  Unless you are studying philosophy or civil disobedience at post-secondary institutions you will seldom find much latitude for tolerance of free thinkers.  Choose your education providers carefully before attending, once you are enrolled and have paid your tuition it is a little late to complain.  It is easier to transfer to another school than it is to "change a school (philosophically)."

 

[danchapps]

I'm sorry if I seem bitter about the whole college thing. It's just when I was in my second year I had an instructor that failed 70% of the class because there wasn't any homework to be marked. This was because he lost it all. He spent pretty much every class arguing with the students about said homework, and no time actually teaching us. It was a set design class, so how one can grade what could be described as art? Needless to say, because my school felt it was more important to publicize themselves instead of hiring a teacher that had his head on straight I pretty much wasted $20 grand on school and didn't get my paper. Oh, and the instructor received his walking papers at the end of the first semester, was allowed to finish the second semester, but not allowed to work at that school again. Just saying, colleges would be better off spending their cash on good teachers rather than what seems to me a stupid (kind of clever but stupid) ad campaign. I mean they really aren't going anywhere, and all they should really need is word of mouth and a decent set of recruiters to visit the schools. I myself regret having gone to college as I didn't even need the paper to get a job in my field. Just my 2 cents.

 

[a_majoor]

Seems the mystery has been revealede Matyas is a Free Press reporter.

http://lfpress.ca/perl-bin/publish.cgi?x=articles&p=225952&s=hottopics

Colleges Ontario gets us to Obay
Joe Matyas
Sun Media
February 26, 2008 

The secret is out -- and free-thinking teens and young adults are safe.



There's no new pharmaceutical on the market to help parents drug them into submission.

Obay was all a ruse, a viral marketing campaign by Colleges Ontario, an association of all colleges in the province.

For the last two weeks, ads on billboards, buses and bus shelters in Ontario's 24 college towns have hinted at a new medication to help parents control the minds of their children. The ads featured a container that looked like a pill bottle, labelled Obay -- an obvious play on obey -- accompanied by such messages as "My son had ideas of his own. Obay put a stop to that."

Colleges Ontario announced Feb. 25 Obay isn't a product, but a marketing campaign to get parents' attention. Research has shown parents favour university over college for their children three to one, said Howard Rundle, president of Fanshawe College.

Studies also show most young people entering high school intend to go to university, but the majority of them don't, he said.

"There's a big disconnect there and parents have a lot to do with it because they influence their sons and daughters."

Many parents promote a university education as the only choice or the best option for their children, Rundle said.

"They perpetuate the notion that an academic education is better and superior."

A college education should be regarded as another option, a different choice, said Rundle, not as something of lesser value. The purpose of the Obay ads was to get the attention of parents and students in a provocative, humourous way.

For the next two weeks, the ads will change with overlays that say such things as: "Sure you want what's best for your kids, but when it comes to post-secondary education, pushing them to do what you want isn't right."

The purpose of this phase of the campaign is to persuade parents and students to consider college as a viable alternative, a choice just as good as university, Rundle said.

Ontario will lose many of its skilled trades practitioners and technologists to retirement during the next decade and "We'll have overwhelming shortages if these retiring baby boomers aren't replaced."

At a Colleges Ontario conference in London two weeks ago, about 500 college leaders from across the province met to talk about rebranding their system.

The Obay campaign was an example of how colleges will do it, Rundle said of the campaign conceived and approved about a year ago.

"By pooling our advertising money, we were able to get a bigger bang for our bucks than we could with 24 individual campaigns. Overall, it's cheaper, too."

Joe Matyas is a Free Press reporter.