It’s Huddersfield but not as we know it... Aliens provide academic inspiration

But, as these images show, the latest ploy to try to attract visitors to the West Yorkshire is a short sci-fi video uploaded to the internet.

Huddersfield University created the video which it also put onto the YouTube website as a new way of selling itself to students.

The film Aliens in the Hud has been put together by and stars students from the university. It showcases different areas of the university around a storyline about aliens wanting to see whether Huddersfield is a good place to study.

Deputy vice chancellor Professor Peter Slee said the university was attempting to promote itself in a way which would appeal to students. He said: “Some universities are still advertising in traditional ways on television or in cinemas but we wanted to do something which would be more relevant to young people. We know they spend a lot of time online, on social media and websites like You Tube. We know that clips can ‘go viral’ as people send things on to their friends which they like and we hope this can happen with this film.”

He said the university was moving away from more traditional advertising. “Some universities still do this but there is no real evidence that it works. This film shows Huddersfield as a place with a modern attractive campus and with relaxed, interesting students and we hope it will result in students considering coming to us”

The video went onto YouTube this week and, by yesterday, had been viewed more than 3,500 times. Prof Slee said it would be the first of many the university would use as promotion.

The film is not the first time Huddersfield has attracted extra terrestrial attention on the screen. Not only is the university’s chancellor Sir Patrick Stewart, most famous for his role as Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek the Next Generation but the town also featured in the adverts for Smash in the 1970s.