Antlerheads in Toronto

The following was originally posted by Patricia Simoes on Spacing Toronto on Wednesday, April 30th.

We are constantly bombarded by ads. On buses, garbage bins, TTC shelters and in the sky line they are hard to escape. But after a while of living in the city, one becomes immune to their carefully constructed lure. For better or worse, ads are a part of the urban fabric that you can learn to ignore. However, once in a while an ad comes along that captures our attention. It’s intriguing and beguiling. It’s edgy and cool…but, it’s an ad.

This is true of the life-sized hipsters with scooter heads that have been pasted at street-level on the sides of buildings across town. Canadian photographer and graffiti artist Fauxreel is responsible for the scooter-men, dubbed Antlerheads. Fauxreel’s work, especially his pasting, is known for being off-beat and innovative. He plays with perspective, pop culture and politics. The Antlerheads are so appealing that both the Globe and Mail and blogTO have praised their effective marketing.

The added mystique of the Antlerheads is that they are not labelled. There is no immediate brand recognition, or website to quell the inquisitive of their curiosity. But a stroll down a certain scooter shop on Queen St. East or College St. will reveal who is responsible for the ads.

The Antlerheads are part of an aggressive Vespa ad campaign to promote their newest scooter. These pasted hipsters are or will also be appearing in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal. They will soon be accompanied by a television commercial and roving Vespas that will project images onto walls in the club district.

Despite the creativity of the campaign, this form of guerrilla marketing is illegal. Even if the advertising company responsible for these ads got permission from property owners to paste the Antlerheads on the exterior walls of their buildings, as third party advertising, they require a permit from city hall. And, according to Rami Tabello of illegalsigns.ca, chances are, they didn’t. “It’s easy to tell that they are illegal. They are located in places not permitted in the signs by-law and didn’t receive city council permission,” says Tabello.

The typical penalty for a violation of Toronto’s sign code regulations is a $1000 fine. However, some believe that the penalties are just not harsh enough to dissuade businesses and advertising companies from this type of behaviour. Jonathan Goldsbie of the Toronto Public Space Committee suggests, “The City should increase fines for corporate graffiti to take into account the economic value of breaking the law. That is, the penalties for engaging in this activity should vastly outweigh the value of the advertising to the company.” Tabello has a much drastic solution, “Ban it entirely.”

Legality aside, guerrilla marketing of this kind is socially irresponsible and an abuse of public space. “It is corporations claiming public space as their own, engaging in vandalism for profit, and leaving it up to the City and perhaps citizens and business owners to clean up their mess,” says Goldsbie.

It is also interesting to see Fauxreel, an established graffiti artist who not only uses public and private spaces to showcase his artwork, but whose art is known to destabilize and play with traditional forms of advertising, working with a corporation and utilizing the same medium as he uses for his independent work. After all, isn’t guerrilla marketing like this the bane of community posterers and graffiti artists? It’s almost like he’s consorting with the enemy.

And, in response to intimations that the Antlerheads campaign is original, Goldsbie says, “It’s pathetic. It’s anti-democratic. They [Vespa] believe that public space is just a blank canvas for a sales pitch.” While Tabello adds, “There is nothing edgy about two-stroke engines that go as fast as a bike.”