From the Nominator

"Under the leadership of the president and CCMO, York University embarked on a journey to clearly define who we are and what we stand for in a compelling and memorable way. The goal was to enhance the university's reputation and encourage stakeholders to engage with us. With an evidence-based strategy, we landed on Positive Change--a bold vision and differentiated positioning that embodied our new University Academic Plan.     

This multi-faceted institutional brand was launched in the first year of the pandemic in September 2020. Building off our brand strategy, a bold, new, and inspiring creative platform “Right The Future” was then developed, bringing the positioning to life with a strong sense of shared identity among all students, faculties, and campuses. This was based off the insight that our primary audiences want to align themselves with values and initiatives they believe in and feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves.  

In our second year of the campaign in 2021, research uncovered further insights, which led to the campaign introducing a second messaging option that was designed to connect better with students. In addition, our research showed that those that saw our ads did not consistently attribute them to York University, so we focused more on a prominent bold expression of “Right the Future” and incorporated a thicker window of positive change within our creative."

From the Judges

This ad did a nice job aligning the brand values with prospective student values. The other outstanding part of this ad was the production value. The visuals were of incredible quality and differentiated the university from others. Excellent job!