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Ontario university mocks Bush in new campaign (to lure Toronto anti-Americans, despite opposition)
CTV.ca ^ | 08/30/06 | News Staff

Posted on 08/30/2006 12:07:44 PM PDT by Heartofsong83

Ontario university mocks Bush in new campaign Updated Tue. Aug. 29 2006 11:21 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

A small northern Ontario university has sparked controversy by launching an edgy new recruitment campaign that mocks U.S. President George Bush and his Ivy League alma mater.

[b]Dubbed "Yale Shmale," the $100,000 crusade features a goofy image of Bush 'Yale University, Class of 1968' on posters that will be plastered across Toronto in a bid to attract potential new students.[/b]

As well as rolling out a series of posters, Lakehead University also took the campaign to its website, where readers are informed that [i]"graduating from an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean you're smart."[/i]

The site then directs readers to a page that says: "There are universities and then there are universities. So let's not beat around the bush. Lakehead is different."

Lakehead president and vice-chancellor Fred Gilbert said the "tongue-in-cheek" campaign by Toronto advertising agency McLellan [b]was designed to lure Toronto students to the Thunder Bay school.[/b]

[b]The website received more than 7,000 hits on Monday, Gilbert said, and online comments had been 95 per cent positive. [/b]

However, Gilbert, who said around 60 of the "Yale Shmale" posters will be mounted around the city, admits not everyone is happy about the new campaign.

Gilbert said the university, which has 7,600 students, had received e-mails which were "running in the opposite direction," which was a concern.

Yale reaction

Yale is not impressed with Lakehead's new marketing scheme either.

"We don't approve of other organizations using the Yale trademark," a spokeswoman for the respected Connecticut university, from which Bush graduated in 1968, told the Toronto Star Monday.

[b]Some of Lakehead's students also considered the campaign inappropriate, Gilbert acknowledged, while the president of Lakehead's student union said it lacked class.

"It strikes me as being very repugnant," union president Isabelle Poniatowski told Reuters. "Lakehead has so many positive attributes that you could really sell to people that live down south." [/b]

Meanwhile, although Lakehead's students may have expressed their feelings about the campaign, the reaction of the university's target audience remains to be seen.

[b]Gilbert says if the reaction in Toronto is as negative as the reaction on the university's campus, the campaign will be dropped.[/b]

The Lakehead campaign comes hot on the heels of a similar promotion that also poked fun at Bush's less-than-cerebral reputation.

Last month, simplyaudiobooks.ca, an audio book rental service, plastered posters and billboards around Toronto featuring a photograph of Bush and the words: "Don't Read Enough? Rent 10,000 books on tape/CD."

The Oakville, Ont.-based company, says the Bush billboards have been met with a positive response and that sales are up 100 per cent.


TOPICS: Canada; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: antiamericanism; antibush; barf; barfalert; bush; bush43; canada; college; gwb; loonyleft; university
As much as I hope it will backfire, their target audience is littered with radical anti-Americans. Local students (who are seeing little of such on their campus) need to say enough is enough.
1 posted on 08/30/2006 12:07:47 PM PDT by Heartofsong83
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To: Heartofsong83

Yeah... President's Bush shouldn't have gotten an education from such disreputable places as Harvard and Yale. Probably should have gone North to, uh.. what was that school's name again?

Time to ship the Molson's across the lake to me. I'll put them to better use and at the same time respect the world leader that is taking on Islamofacism.


2 posted on 08/30/2006 12:14:09 PM PDT by Made In The USA (Bacon is infidelicious)
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To: Made In The USA

Yeah, if only they had a second university there that was more receptive of local needs and didn't go all-out to pander to the Toronto views (which are VERY anti-American).

The next closest school to there I believe is in Duluth, MN. The next closest Canadian school is in Winnipeg.

Sorry about the bad HTML tags, they wouldn't highlight (maybe I did it wrong?) and I cannot edit it.


3 posted on 08/30/2006 12:15:56 PM PDT by Heartofsong83
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To: Heartofsong83

Sounds like a real bastion of intellectual enlightment /sarc.

What kind of school has to engage in crass ad hominem childishness to attract students, especially one that mocks a school of far more renowned and a man far more successful than any of their graduates ever have been or ever will?? Who has even heard of this little rinky dink university?

Finally, why would anyone send their kids to a school that has to resort to such low brow tactics to attract students? Don't good schools usually attract students without having to lure them with sophomoric nonsense?


4 posted on 08/30/2006 12:18:46 PM PDT by MikeA (Not voting out of anger in November is a vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House)
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To: Heartofsong83
Ontario Shmario.
5 posted on 08/30/2006 12:19:09 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper (ETERNAL SHAME on the Treasonous and Immoral Democrats!)
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To: Heartofsong83

They sound like a real bunch of winners. *puke*


6 posted on 08/30/2006 12:24:26 PM PDT by redstates4ever
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From: The Weak White North

Look at us! Look at us!

7 posted on 08/30/2006 12:25:26 PM PDT by I see my hands (_8(|)
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To: Heartofsong83
Yeah, right. (Rolling eyes.) Why waste your time at a place like Yale when you can be getting a real education at Lakehead?

Anyone who believes it, deserves it.

8 posted on 08/30/2006 12:28:30 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Heartofsong83
Just because you went to an Ivy League college doesn't necessarily mean your smart.


9 posted on 08/30/2006 1:04:10 PM PDT by GOP_Raider (Would you like to join the OFFICIAL Oakland Raiders ping list? Sure you would, send me freepmail.)
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To: Heartofsong83
Can't imagine why you post stuff that primarily attracts FR's moronic habitual bashers of ALL Canadians.

Besides, Lakehead's opportunistic stupidity was answered in last Saturday's National Post:

Jughead university

EDITORIAL: The National Post
Saturday, August 26, 2006
It is a tired conceit of the political left that conservatives, simply because they hold different views from their own, are inherently stupid.

Consequently, whenever a Republican occupies the world's most powerful political office -- the U.S. presidency -- the incumbent is generally portrayed as sort of an idiot-in-chief. It was the case both for great Republican presidents like Ronald Reagan and Dwight D. Eisenhower, and lesser ones like Gerald Ford, who opponents said was so stupid he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. Predictably, this slander has now attached itself to George W. Bush. That in the course of political discourse the left so often falls back on what amounts to name-calling says a lot more about them and the weakness of their arguments than anything about their ideological opponents. It is pathetic, really, which makes you wonder why an audio book company and now a university in Canada would want to play the same stupid game.

Simply Audiobooks Inc. is currently trying to hawk its wares with the help of an unflattering picture of President Bush beside the words "Don't read enough?" in its smart-alecky billboard campaign. Now Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., has joined in the attacks, unveiling its own ads featuring a photograph of President Bush, a Yale University graduate, and the words "Yale Shmale: Graduating from an Ivy League university doesn't necessarily mean you're smart."

In unveiling Lakehead's ad campaign yesterday, Dr. Fred Gilbert, the university's president, said, "The Yale Shmale campaign speaks to the unique personality of Lakehead University and our community of students." It is a serious mistake for Lakehead to try to inflate its own appeal by attacking other, far more prestigious institutions. Let's face it, for all its much-vaunted status as "Canada's No.1 Value-Added University" (whatever that means), it would take a "unique personality" indeed, given the opportunity and resources, to choose Lakehead over Yale.

In much the same way as those on the political left who think they can advance their cause by hurling insults, Lakehead University comes off looking, well, stupid.

© National Post 2006

Source

10 posted on 08/30/2006 1:05:01 PM PDT by GMMAC (Discover Canada governed by Conservatives: www.CanadianAlly.com)
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To: GOP_Raider

We would be much better off if we had fewer Ivy Leaguers at every level of the government. They have been screwing things up since the days of FDR.


11 posted on 08/30/2006 1:43:56 PM PDT by BW2221
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To: BW2221
Declaring all lawyers, as "officers of the Courts" to have an open conflict of interest with respect to the Executive & Legislative branches of government & rightly barring them by law from seeking or holding any position in same, to me, would solve far more problems than singling out any particular universities or, more to the point, law schools.
12 posted on 08/30/2006 2:01:45 PM PDT by GMMAC (Discover Canada governed by Conservatives: www.CanadianAlly.com)
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To: GMMAC
Yale is pretty well known for having lousy football teams. They even have a cheer for when the other side scores, which happens lots.

That's all right!

That's OK!

You'll all work

For us someday!

13 posted on 08/31/2006 10:07:58 AM PDT by concrete is my business (place, consolidate, finish)
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