uOttawa “Defy the Conventional” campaign to help break stereotypes of the university

The University of Ottawa launched its new positioning campaign on Monday, focused on the theme “Defy the Conventional.” A new website, defytheconventional.ca, was launched to showcase campus innovators. The first of 3 phases of the campaign will run until December, and will feature stories about "quirky" uOttawa icons. Among the persons and programs being profiled are cancer researcher John Bell, law professor Carissima Mathen, and the university’s INSPIRE lab. “I’ve been amazed as I’ve travelled the country and met with key stakeholders that people don’t have a good idea what the University of Ottawa is all about. We haven’t been really good at telling its story,” said VP External Relations Louis de Melo. He says that the new campaign is “not so much a tag line, it’s not a marketing campaign, it’s about the substance behind it. What is really the essence, the DNA of the University of Ottawa?” The campaign will run over the next 2 years. “This will position us favourably as we compete for the best faculty members out there, the best researchers, and certainly the best students to choose U of Ottawa as their first choice,” de Melo said. uOttawa News Release | Ottawa Citizen | defytheconventional.ca