The city of Paris has recently been courting tourists from London, England with a new series of ads that look like this:
What does a Paris tourism poster have to do with Toronto? Well, the C'est So Paris ads, with their posy compositions, saturated colours and irreverent humour, bears an uncanny resemblance to those T.O. Live With Culture posters from January, only these are actually good. The Parisian ads are witty, attention-grabbing and intelligible—everything the T.O. Live With Culture ads tried to be, but weren't.
The above image is a promo for the Rugby World Cup in Paris in September, and another poster shows legged new-age furniture walking down a runway in anticipation of a design exhibition in the fall. According to the C'est So Paris website, the ads purposely "make fun of the city's stereotypes...to give a new image to Paris."
Apparently, T.O. Live With Culture similarly tried to lampoon "perceptions that Toronto is a bland, uninteresting city." However, instead of trying to capture what is unique (and thus marketable) about Toronto, the admeisters behind the T.O. Live With Culture campaign, in typical Canadian fashion, described Toronto in terms of what it isn't.
The Paris ads are a good example of flaunting what you've got; not what you don't. Yet what makes them truly successful is their clarity: they're directed specifically at Londoners and their interests (by contrast, who the heck do the T.O. Live With Culture ads speak to?), and each poster advertises a specific event in Paris' cultural calendar. The point being made is that the city is a dynamic place with many such happenings year-round.
The T.O. Live With Culture campaign lacks such focus. Pointing out that Toronto has museums, movies and opera is not enough; what big city doesn't have those things? The poster comparing Toronto to Hollywood should be highlighting the Toronto International Film Festival; however, to a non-Torontonian the only message being conveyed is that you can watch a lot of blockbusters here.
Toronto's been fubbing up these tourism ads for decades now. Gregory Nixon, the program manager for T.O. Live With Culture, said that he wanted to "provoke some kind of a debate about how Toronto wants to represent itself to the rest of the world." So how do we want to represent ourselves?
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Toronto - As gay as it gets!
"The Parisian ads are witty, attention-grabbing and intelligible—everything the T.O. Live With Culture ads tried to be, but weren't."
So says you -- and who the heck are you? It's your opinion, but I don't think you've sold me at all on why these are better than the Toronto ones. You've bought into the snarky hipster group-think that this blog flushed over its readers when the Toronto ads came out.
Didn't we answer that question 7 months ago with a comment section full of ideas? Or was that the "school project" campaign wherein Toronto is the hip hop and comedy capital of the universe (P Diddy walked by a club on Richmond once!!!!!)
guest 2: the Toronto ads are garbage, I dare you to defend them.
Torontonians -- As bitchy as it gets! (When it comes to, y'know, really unimportant stuff.)
Group-think or not, the Paris ad is more successful because the tagline makes the image make sense. The Toronto one shown here is confusing for several reasons: are you supposed to read the part in quotes or the tagline first? Is the viewer supposed to be the guy brushing his teeth who lives in Toronto, or is this a still from a "movie" in Toronto? Is this ad funny because big breasts = Hollywood?
Toronto hasn't found a way to sell itself yet, which isn't such a bad thing. I think a good place to start, however, would be to focus less on events and places and more on memories and experiences.
rek> Trevor explains better the "garbage" position. You are just saying "they are garbage" -- the onus is on you to say why, intelligently, they are that, not on me to defend them, because you are saying they are garbage. They are neutral, until i'm convinced otherwise.
Mmmh, Trevor, those breasts are not big!
MARIA
Guest 8: That's the point. Toronto is not Hollywood, ergo Toronto = small breasts.
Hey, I live in Toronto, and my breasts are not THAT small!
Guest #8 a.k.a. MARIA
The previous articles I mentioned...
http://torontoist.com/2007/01/wtf_to.php
http://torontoist.com/2007/04/excuse_me_but_h.php
7: These ads are garbage because they don't promote Toronto, they promote other cities and say we're "nothing like that". The nut at the core of the message is reduced to a single work in the logo-thing at the bottom.
They're garbage because they basically state that Toronto is dull and conservative and boring -- our women are flat-chested, our idea of a sexy is a prison jumpsuit getup, we'll snag cabs out from under pregnant women, etc. Oh, but it's being ironic or something! Come to Toronto, it'll be a goof!
work = word
Well, Toronto is boring. Any ad campaign advertising otherwise would be a lie.
God, I can't get over how much Toronto hates itself. Stop it, please!
(That was directed at guest #13.)
#13, as a new resident in Toronto, I can tell you that Toronto is anything but boring. Maybe that's why Toronto ad campaigns tend to suck so badly---Torontoans don't recognize the good they've got and thus can't capitalize on it.
As someone who has lived in Assfuck, Southwestern Ontario for 10 years before moving here, I am pretty sure that Toronto is paradise, Vancouver be damned. As a vegetarian, I can count on having a freshly grilled veggie dog at four in the morning, some new love/hate Pan-Asian restaurant is always around the corner, and if I want dessert, I can grab barfi in Little India, stuffed buns in Chinatown, or walnut cakes in Little Korea. I can see an independent, foreign, or just plain insane (Reg Hart, anyone?) film at almost any hour. Cultures I didn't even know existed are throwing film festivals here. Yesterday I saw a skate punk argue a crazy bicyclist down from throwing his bike at a queer couple who he thought were laughing at him, crazy guy cycled away peacefully. Our graffiti is funny, if you spill your shit on the subway someone will offer you a bag, and when my then-boyfriend came to Toronto for the first time wearing an anti-war shirt, a bicyclist sped past him and whispered urgently in his ear, "War is peace!". Our homeless give directions, our sports teams are lovable (if not admirable), and our public transit system is full of everyday endearments, like Easter Eggs hidden in programmer's code. Gay? We have a neighbourhood for that. Portuguese? We have a neighbourhood for that. Hipster scum? We've devoted half the city to you. If a store is going to add a location in Canada, we'll get it first. If you want to throw paint on the windows of huge business headquarters, you'll find them here. YOU DON'T NEED A CAR TO BE A CITY RESIDENT. You'll live with a bunch of other heterogeneous folks who look like cold, crazy New York city on the outside but have all these strange little charms, inclinations, and whimsies on the inside. I swear to god, if you're sick of Toronto it's only because you've stopped looking.
Guest 16 for Mayor.
That's a pretty great ad for Paris.
16 - that's a great ad for Toronto right there.