Obay is a fictional mind control

Mind control

Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...

 medication

Medication

A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine, medication or medicament, can be loosely defined as any chemical substance intended for use in the medical diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention of disease.- Classification :...

 at the centre of a viral marketing

Viral marketing

Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...

 campaign begun in February 2008 by Colleges Ontario, the advocacy group for colleges and institutes of applied arts and technology in the province of Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and developed by the Smith Roberts advertising agency

Advertising agency

An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...

. The campaign seeks to eliminate what the group calls "academic snobbery" on the part of parent

Parent

A parent is a caretaker of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is of a child . Children can have one or more parents, but they must have two biological parents. Biological parents consist of the male who sired the child and the female who gave birth to the child...

s, who often see colleges as inferior to universities

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

, and who may push their children towards the latter option against their wishes.

Overview

Beginning the week of February 11, 2008, advertisements for Obay began appearing throughout Ontario, primarily at public transit venues such bus stops, subway stations, as well as on and in transit vehicles themselves. The ads variously claimed that Obay, "from the makers of WhyBecauseISaidSo™", could stop children from thinking for themselves, or supplant their own hopes and goals with their parents'. Radio ads also aired directing listeners to call 1-888-YOU-OBAY, where Obay was said to transform children into "docile pussycats, open to... the future you've mapped out for them." The campaign received national and international attention.

Despite the use of the trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 symbol, there have been no filings for trademarks for either Obay or WhyBecauseISaidSo with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office

Canadian Intellectual Property Office

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office is the patent, trademark, and copyright administration body of Canada. Structurally the CIPO functions as a Special Operating Agency which is associated with Industry Canada....

, nor have there been any other indications (such as Health Canada

Health Canada

Health Canada is the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for national public health.The current Minister of Health is Leona Aglukkaq, a Conservative Member of Parliament appointed to the position by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.-Branches, regions and agencies:Health Canada...

 filings) indicating that the product was actually available for sale. As a result speculation immediately arose as to whether the campaign was a form of viral marketing, anti-commercial culture jamming

Culture jamming

Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.Culture...

 (potentially linked to the "Obey Giant" street art campaign), or possibly anti-pharmaceutical activism by the Church of Scientology

Church of Scientology

The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...

. Within a week, local blog Torontoist

Gothamist

Gothamist LLC is the operator of eleven city-centric blogs worldwide that focus on news, events, food, culture, and other local coverage.-History:...

 said they had traced the campaign to the colleges group.

Colleges Ontario officially confirmed their involvement on February 25, launching the second phase of the campaign, which also includes a website and cinema

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

advertising, emphasizing the variety of available programs. The original ads have been "corrected" with notices that Obay does not actually exist, directing viewers to the organization's website.

External links

• Ontario Colleges "Why College" website
• Mysterious Ads for “Obay”—Accordion Guy Blog, February 15, 2008
• Flickr photo pool of Obay ads