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Photos by Kaori Furue/Torontoist.
If you live or work downtown, and a bunch of white foam people have been floating by you, tumbling into buildings and onto the ground and dissipating, or rising ever-higher up through the clouds, please don't freak out: they're just (another) marketing campaign.
Jim Schwartz (who we have to thank for creating the Toronto Sun Sucks blog that we just wrote about), tipped us off this morning to the creations, sending us the dramatic video below. Schwartz also pointed us in the direction of Flogos, short for "foam logos," a company that does exactly this kind of thing. The company's FAQ page—which does a way better job of explaining how Flogos are made than we ever could—notes that Flogos "can travel from 1 to 30 miles and float as high as 5000 feet," and are, with every machine that produces them (the company recommends "at least two"), capable of popping out at a rate of one "every 15 to 50 seconds."
Torontoist spoke to Flogos Canada President Tom Richard on the phone this afternoon, and he confirmed that the vaguely horrifying human shapes are rising out and up from Front Street. While the company is doing some promotion right now in several cities for Lindt (you know, the chocolate company; because when you think delicious, you think foam), the ones you may have spotted today are part of a demonstration his company is putting on for the Canadian Special Events Marketing Expo (CSEME), which is itself put on by Canadian Event Perspectives Magazine. In other words, these Flogos are advertising for advertising itself.
And if that all hurts your head anywhere as much as it hurt ours, you probably wish there was some place more soothing to look to than the sky.
Additional reporting by Kaori Furue.
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Ad creep.
I, for one, welcome our new foamy overlords.
I'm no marketing or ad sales expert, but... in addition to owning the sky (and Yonge-Dundas Square, and our sidewalks, etc) these rogue advertisers are successfully managing to get on Torontoist time and time again. How about approaching them for sidebar ad placement rather than just giving them the exposure for free? Just a thought :) Cadbury and DX and Flogos clearly have budgets.
Because advertising occasionally can be newsworthy, but writing about strange foam people flying around in the air isn't conditional on someone paying Torontoist money. Torontoist readers might want to know what the deal is behind a sidewalk stencil or the creative Cadbury billboard, but don't want Torontoist overrun with ads from those respective companies as a result of one post. For example, I am mildly interested in BMW's Minis, but I wouldn't want a favourite blog reskinned as a giant mini ad with Flash popups, sound, and tiled backgrounds for a company promotion just because they couldn't say no to a little bit of extra dough.
If I was a media buyer and a blog approached me and said they'd write an article about my product—but only if I paid them or gave them free stuff—I'd tell them to fuck right off.
I mean, surely BlogTO doesn't get kickbacks for writing about attending The Wine & Cheese Show or featuring a profile on a restaurant, right?
As I said, ads can be newsworthy, and Torontoist has usually been hardly complimentary to advertising and marketing in its history.
I actually enjoy your coverage of advertising campaigns so keep 'em coming. And, no, like Torontoist, blogTO has a 100% separation between editorial and advertising so we don't receive or accept any kickbacks for writing about stuff.
"Vaguely horrifying"? VAGUELY?
Looks like garbage.
Can they make foam transmitters so the floating ads have sound?
...such as demented, zombie-like moaning?
How would you get a logo or a brand on those suckers? The only thing I can think of these things advertising is maybe a movie like "Casper The Friendly Ghost 3: The Killing Time"
I noticed these hovering over metro hall today. At first I thought it was white plastic bags until I noticed they were little "men's bathroom" indicators. I'm curious of the environmental impact. Who discards them when they get caught in trees?
They can't get caught in trees. They are made of soap bubbles which will dissolve upon contact with any surface.
interesting, I want to see one!
i think this is cool. thanks for pointing it out. this might be a new interesting ad medium
I was walking along Baldwin with friends a couple of days ago, when we spotted an odd, diaphanous, trapezoidal thing wafting along the curb until it came to rest under a car. It lay there, pulsing. We stared at it for a few moments. It seemed like some kind of foam -- but it was very strange, how it held its shape. Afraid to touch it, we decided it must be a visiting alien. How disappointing the truth is sometimes...
this is cool. thanks for bringing this up.
this would be a nicely different ad medium