In Spacing Issue 5, I wrote about how my local park, St. Andrew’s, has recently been revitalized. I went there to eat lunch today, and I was happy to see how many people were there eating lunch, chatting with friends and basking in the lovely weather. I wasn’t happy, however, when I saw the FREAKIN’ HUGE INFLATABLE AD that had been blown up right at the other entrance to the park.
(Fellow Spacing editor Leah Sandals, in orange on the right, is standing beside the ad to provide a sense of scale. I’ve blurred out the product name so as not to provide undue publicity to the perpetrators).
I asked the guys who were inflating the ad what it was about and if they had permission from Parks and Recreation. The guy said “Oh yeah, of course”, but then in the next breath explained that their office is nearby, and they just needed a place to test it out — which does not exactly sound like something they got permission for first. It would be down in an hour, he said. Of course, the “testing” was being done at lunch time when the park and nearby streets were full of people …
If you want to complain to the company, you can do so here. You can also email Parks and Recreation (parks@toronto.ca) and the councillor for Trinity-Spadina (councillor_silva@toronto.ca).
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In other news, that’s a sweet Honda 3000i generator they’ve got there. Partial to the Yamaha 3000ise myself. Smooooth invertor power.
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Seriously, is there a way you can cross-reference? And does anyone buy Clodhoppers anyhow?
I have a story with clodhoppers.
Back in Grade 9, during a blizzard day, everyone crowded the school stop to get on the first bus. (Because if you don’t get on that bus there wouldn’t be one for the next hour… literally.) Luckily I got on the bus, but I had two more buses to ride on before I go home.
There was this one guy (it was about 3:45 PM… and dark) who was just waiting for the next possible bus to get home. Everyone was inside waiting in the Petro Canada Gas Station waiting for the bus. Another small group of students were in a circle trying to keep warm because every bus that came by ended up being full (service), or out of service. There were another group of students that threw snowballs at every bus that passed by them.
Where do the clodhoppers come in? Well since there was food available to be bought at the gas station (We were on Sheppard and Kennedy if I recall)… this guy passed around a bag of clodhoppers to anyone who was craving the munchies. Waiting for the Sheppard or 190 Bus was a big toll on the stomach. The clodhoppers kept all the groups together with food. =P
Well, in the end I ended up taking the next possible bus that came (which was the 190 that came at 5:50 PM). I ended up coming home at 6:30 PM… a bit late when school finishes at 3:00 PM and I never went anywhere inbetween.
Clodhoppers (and horrible TTC service during a blizzard day) kept people sane, it was pretty cold out.
These guys are doing serious summertime promotion. Personally, I can’t think of anything I’d rather not eat on a hot summer day than a chunk of rice covered in sugar. The carbs alone!
Unauthorized marketing is done by the big boys too. I used to hand out product samples for a (big) marketing company when I was a teenager. One day we went to an event for a Canadian newspaper with copies of a rival Canadian newspaper that we were told to hand out to everyone who was entering. I asked my supervisor if we were allowed to be doing this, and I was told that if security asked, to say that we had authorization, and at worst, offer to move outside if the issue was pressed. All to get all the attendees to have copies of this rival newspaper in hand.
A copy of the note I sent the guys. Feel free to appropriate:
“Given the fact that this type of advertising operates purely by getting itself seen, “testing it out†in a public space without, I’m going to guess, permission to do so (which I hope the city’s Parks and Rec would have denied), is a really distasteful co-optation of space that very specifically is not yours to use.
Consider this, in the mind of one consumer, a black mark against you.
Bert Archer”
Near my old house outside of Windsor, there is a guy in a new monster home, formerly a soybean field, who runs some kind of inflatable business. It’s not uncommon to come home and find King Kong or some cartoon character looming over his lawn, as he leaves the inflator running all night. I think you can rent these things and put your own banner on it, like “Lordy Lordy Look Who’s 40”. A different breed from this one, but in the inflatable world.
Speaking of forced air, i was walking down Bathurst, south of King recently, and the Dominos Pizza there had one of those tubes attached to a fan, the kind that are sometimes made to look like dancing men who blow down then stand up, ad infinitum. it was malfunctioning and the tube was snapping, like a towel in a high school change room, at passerby.
inflatables can go wrong, like here, but we can’t overlook the good inflatables do, too. seeing those dancing tubes, when they are erect and not s napping low, bring great joy to a specific percentage of the population.
I remember those two chocolatiers doing an tv ad a few years back praising their product being sold at a certain giant superstore chain (hint: it starts with a W)
Go figure.
Disheartened by the ad creep, I too sent a note expressing my dismay. They got back to me with this:
“Thank you for taking time to contact us and express your concerns.
It was absolutely not our intent to execute a Guerrilla marketing stunt in St Andrews park. Please allow me to explain.
We had just received our inflatable bag and were excited to see how it gets set up. We were not aware of the Toronto city bylaws and this was an oversight on our part. It was just a test to see what the bag would look at an event, as we will be participating in several sanctioned events across the nation. It was not meant to be an advertisement.
We apologize for any discomfort that we may have caused you.
Sincerely,
Chris Emery
Director of Marketing Brookside Foods”
So, it was an honest mistake, I guess. I suppose I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and simmer down. I get a little trigger-happy when it comes to stuff like this though. I’m glad they took the time to explain themselves.
Interesting – I sent in a complaint too, and didn’t get a reply. I used the phrase “guerilla marketing stunt” in my letter, though, so maybe their letter was prepared with my complaint in mind as well.
I think it was well worth a complaint – even if it was a genuine mistake (we can’t really know for sure either way), a marketing department should have known better. And, thanks to everyone who wrote in, they will next time.