Rocket Talk: When's the TTC Going to Roll Out More Fare Collection Methods?
Newsstand: November 9, 2009
The Daily Photoist: November 9, 2009
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
Urban Planner: November 9, 2009
zig Executive Creative Director Martin Beauvais, to The National Post about his company's totally repulsive bumvertising campaign for CFRB: "We didn’t pay [the homeless people] thousands or hundreds. We paid them the kind of money they would make on the street because it would have been wrong to do more than that. We paid them something decent." And: "I don’t think it’s exploitive at all because we’ve asked people if they wanted to do it and they agreed to do it. We presented them with the whole idea of what it was about. I don’t think it’s exploitive at all. It’s not more exploitive than putting a billboard on a building." Uhhhh...
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Essentially, this is the sweatshop argument come home to roost. One party will say that equal labour should get equal pay and corporations are evil exploiters, and the other party will say that $1 a day is better than $0 a day and that the first party is hypocritical because they're not poor.
Not being an expert on the finer legal aspects of the Ontario economy, could someone enlighten me as to why independent contractors are not bound by minimum wage? I understand they're not obligated to work a set shift, or hourly period, but I would expect that whatever they were paid for whatever period they worked would still need to match the subsistence rate. This is a genuine question, I can't envision why it wouldn't apply.
What about opinions, how do pollsters get away with asking me questions without paying me?
The usual intro to any poll is asking whether you would mind answering some questions... and then you 'volunteer' your opinion. But I'm pretty sure that wasn't a serious question.
They should make at least as much as other people paid to hold up signs on the street, like the guy in my neighbourhood who dresses up as a maple leaf and dances outside the accountant's place at tax time, or person in the gorilla suit shilling for the pizza place down the block.
seeing as zig's CD blatantly compares the homeless sign-holders to a billboard, one would ASSUME they'd be paid as much as outdoor signage at Yonge/Dundas Yonge/Bloor would cost to rent for the same time period...
We paid them the kind of money they would make on the street because it would have been wrong to do more than that.
This is the part that really blew my mind. I just don't get it. I don't understand the logic behind it. It's wrong to give lots of money to people who need it? What?
It's time for some tar and feathers.
I guess it's like chips... if you gave a fair wage to one, you'd have to give one to -everyone-?
And that's just silly.
Okay, is there a single argument against bumvertising that doesn't boil down to "I personally find it offensive and things that offend me should be banned?"
How many of you hypocrites went nuts when the conservatives removed a tax cut for "pornographic" movies?
Did zig tell CFRB what it was going to do? And if so, did CFRB approve the scheme?
If it did, CFRB shows it still has no class and deserves to be where it is in the ratings.
It wants to increase its ratings since the next ratings book from Bureau of Broadcast Measurement is coming out in about a month.
Will the station continue its downward slide?
Judging by how the programs are being juggled and infomercials during the overnight, yes it's going further downhill.
What!?! When did they take away the tax cuts! There goes my hand lotion budget. Spacejack, as legitament business practices go, this one is shadey. I probibly havn't read enough into it, but do you think this will go as far as it currantly does now? I don't think so, if this goes un moderated, you will have these businesses pushing the limits one step at a time until you ask youself "how did it get this bad"? I'm just saying, next thing you know there will be guy dressed in shabby cloths barking at people about the greatest prices at Walmart. Does that man have a mental illness. Does it even matter if he does, since everyone else is doing it. Advertising companies always try and push their limits, and they just love it when no limits have been set.
David Toronto, BBM's books were closed and added way before this campaign started.
Gaulder, can you please give me the numbers to the next 64/9? It'd be really nice if you could rub that crystal ball and tell me.
Cause next thing you know, the army is going to move in and force us to watch advertising ala Clockwork Orange and our body energy will be used to power the underworld. Then we're going to sit back and say: god how did it get this way? At that point I'll take the blue pill.
@spacejack: there's a difference between "this offends me personally" and "this is a morally reprehensible, totally exploitative, and objectively wrong way to treat human beings."
Dude, take the red ones. You get a better buzz.
I too think these ads are reprehensible, but lines like "objectively wrong way to treat human beings" are full of shit. There is nothing objective about that statement. The negative reaction many (including myself) have to these is at its core paternalistic: we don't trust the homeless to have been able to weigh all of the competing factors (adequate compensation? am I being mocked?) and have still made the choice freely and without duress.
I'm going to speak in terms of generally, not in terms of every case here, but don't you wonder how these people ended up on the streets in the first place? Isn't society allowing them to end up on the streets "objectively wrong way to treat human beings?.
Isn't our collective apathy toward finding a solution is the true shame, not whether CFRB is using a clever ad campaign?
Isn't it amusing how on Torontoist, this has generated a few articles but the mainstream media dropped it after a day?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I think that the most of the duress came pre-bundled with the homelessness, and if they're not paying these people minimum wage, then it is significantly more exploitative than hanging a sign on a building.
Canuck, any media source caters to its own interests, and that’s no surprise. For instance, an article on the Globe & Mail website on the dangers of craigslist's free advertising was available for people to see for 2 weeks. There are a lot of issues regarding this topic, but it seems to be the consensus with everyone responding is that nothing is going to be done about it.
>I think that the most of the duress came pre-bundled with the homelessness, and if they're not paying these people minimum wage, then it is significantly more exploitative than hanging a sign on a building.
What a stupid comparison. You obviously have no clue as to how advertising is measured and sold.
Maybe the reason it's not reported as much in the media because by reporting on it legitimizes the tactic and proves that it's successful.
On the other hand, maybe the reason no one's reporting on it because it's really not a big deal to anyone who's not a bleeding heart liberal with a heart of gold.
>Canuck, any media source caters to its own interests, and that’s no surprise.
Torontoist not excluded.
>What a stupid comparison. You obviously have no clue as to how advertising is measured and sold.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that people *are* like buildings? Perhaps you're reading too quickly, or reading too much into my comment.
No, you are ignorant, which is why you don't understand my point. Which is actually part of my point.
How do you know these homeless people aren't getting paid what their 'property' is worth?
Not all billboards (for example) cost the same amount of money. It's dependent on many things, eyeballs being the biggest one.
And no I'm not saying people are like buildings (that's ridiculous). Don't put your own words in my mouth plz.
I trust that (most) homeless and other street people are capable of making decisions, however this decision is very much weighed against them:
You're homeless and starving. Some asshole from zig/bumvertising approaches you and offers you $10 and a can of Pringles to hold a sign that calls attention to your situation for the financial benefit of a 3rd party. All you have to do is sit there (which you're already doing) and hold a sign (which you may already be doing). No skin off your back, right? Now your choice is to say Yes and get that pittance (which may rival or surpass a day's panhandling but not by much), or say No and risk not getting any money or food at all that day because there are no guarantees anyone will feel generous/pity and throw some change your way. What do you do?
Some say No for whatever their reasons may be, and that takes all sorts of guts.
Would this be an issue if zig had approached regular people on the street (say, waiting for a streetcar) to hold signs ("is the TTC an essential service? we need to talk" maybe)? Not at all. Why? Because Bill Busstop doesn't have the threat of starvation looming behind his ability to decide Yes or No. Because Sally Shortturn isn't being targeted and then lowballed because of her desperate situation.
That's the exploitation. It's not offensive because homeless people are idiots incapable of making decisions, it's offensive because it takes advantage of their situation to influence their compliance, then pays them a few bucks and presents itself as charitable for even bothering to compensate them for the asymmetric benefit done for their client.
(And it adds more advertising at street level which is an eyesore and likely illegal.)
CFRB, you can talk all you want but I won't be tuning in to listen. Unless it's to get a list of your sponsors in order to complain to them...
Well said, Rek.
What I probably should have said before was was that I do understand how advertising is sold and I think its irrelevant to this discussion.
Torontoist not excluded.
Yeah... That was my point. It's a media outlet just like any other.
rek, I agree with you. I didn't say they were incapable of making decisions because they were stupid. I said (as you did) that they were under duress when they made the decision (here, because of economic circumstances). We don't (and shouldn't) care about private decisions that are made free from duress.
How do you measure "free from duress?" What if I can't make rent next month for a bachelor apartment and need to take a crappy, humiliating job? What if need to make a mortgage payment for a $5,000,000 home and I decide, against my principles, to work for a tobacco company?
How do you know that the panhandler you see holding a sign actually can't get any kind of job, and isn't doing it just because it's easier?
There's a significant difference between begging for money for food, shelter, or a pack of smokes/bottle of booze/rock, and "needing" to make a mortgage payment on a $5million home. It's always a question of degree [what about a $4,999,999 home?], but I'd say the duress is considerably more when you look at someone begging for money so they can get a room for the night in winter.