Colossus wins 2026 Adage Small Agency of the Year.
The remit to Boston agency Colossus was this: Make us the Sloan Kettering of autism.
That ambitious request came from the New England Center for Children (NECC), a private special education residential school for autistic children that, despite its stellar track record over a half century in operation, was relatively unknown.
The assignment, “was to raise awareness, increase fundraising and reposition NECC from a local school to a globally recognized force.” Doing so earned Colossus Campaign of the Year: Healthcare, Gold at the 2026 Ad Age Small Agency Awards.
See all the Small Agency 2026 winners
The temptation might well have been to create a campaign touting NECC’s staff of 1,200 and their collective 2,000 master’s degrees, its Applied Behavioral Analysis software or its international partnerships. Instead, Colossus took a divergent route. It developed a charmingly irreverent campaign voiced by Jon Stewart that deliberately avoided what Colossus called “highly clinical tropes.”
In fact, the opening scene pokes fun at NECC’s out-of-the-way location (it’s 25 miles west of Boston) by first zooming in on a granite company across the street before Stewart apologizes and offers a correction. The same light tone carries through the video, which highlights the accomplishments of the center’s students and those of its teachers at an almost comically breathless pace—at one point Stewart takes an “intermission” to collect himself with a sip of water.
The film was shown online and as a movie theater trailer, augmented with posters hung in lobbies. The shop also created a website touting the NECC as “One Powerful Place” and managed to achieve what might be the ultimate in place-based marketing: It convinced local officials to change NECC’s physical address to “1 Powerful Place.”
NECC beat its fundraising goals by more than 30% within months of launch, “while also increasing visibility, engagement and partnership opportunities worldwide,” according to the agency.
“The work we do at NECC often happens quietly and without fanfare,” commented Jared Bouzan, VP and chief development and strategy officer at NECC. “This campaign allows us to take a minute and celebrate how the accomplishments of our students and team have changed the world for the better in a way we can build upon for years to come.”
He added, “Colossus understood that mission from the beginning and amplified it beyond our wildest dreams.”