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26 Comments

news

The Change We Don’t Need

By Alex Nino Gheciu

20090409VanOlympicsBulletHole.jpg
Photo by Alex Nino Gheciu/Torontoist.


If you’re stopping by Dundas Station while riding the rocket anytime soon, you might mistakenly think you’re pulling into Compton. A series of posters lined along the platform walls—that look like stop-motion animation from the subway cars as you pull into or out of the station—strangely resemble plate-glass windows with bullet holes punched through them. Is it a plug for 50 Cent’s new album? Good guess, but not quite.

20090409VanOlympicsBulletHole2.jpg
Photo by Kelly Rankin.

It turns out it’s an ad for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games commemorative coin collection. Look a bit closer and what appears to be shattered glass is actually just a pile of change with a circular area cleared, save for an Olympic coin right in the middle.
Still, from afar it looks an awful lot like a subterranean shootout just went down. Could this be a reference to the recent presence of high-profile gun violence in Vancouver (and, to some extent, Toronto as well), drawing the inevitable attention of international media outlets? Is the mass of change perhaps a clever pun for the “change” Stephen Harper vows to effect prior to the Olympics through tougher gang crime crackdowns?
Apparently not. According to the Royal Canadian Mint, the pile of coins is simply meant to look like a pile of coins.
“Excuse me? Is this a prank call?” asked a Mint marketing representative who refused to be named. “I don’t think that’s possible. You can clearly see that it’s coins. No, there’s no way. Obviously we’re a government crown corporation. When I see the advertisement, I don’t think it looks like that at all.”
Yeesh. Talk about a marketing faux pas. We’ll bet commuters will feel cool as cucumbers rolling through Dundas Station to witness what looks like the scene of a subway drive-by.
Thanks to reader Kelly Rankin for the tip.

Comments

  • http://null Imposter

    Wow.
    I’ve been passing by this station and ads for a month now and have not once came to this conclusion. Much like this site’s (perhaps rightful) criticism of The Sun’s glorifying and scare-mongering of gun violence, you’ve managed to see something that isn’t quite there.

  • http://undefined davedave

    Uhhhhh, no. Those coins look like coins. From afar they look like coins. Riding past them in the subway they look like coins.
    This whole article is profoundly stupid.
    Why don’t you go find Jesus on a tortilla chip and then call CNN or something.

  • http://null Bias

    I like the ad, i don’t think anyone that’s thinking reasonably will see this as some sort of commentary on gun violence if they take the time to look at it. I hate to post a snarky comment on torontoist (because thats all people seem to do around here) but this story really is total bullshit.

  • http://null esct

    Blurr the images even more – it’ll make for a more convincing argument.

  • http://null nib

    they only look like bullet pierced plate glass in the out of focus photo up top.
    in real life they look exactly like… coins!

  • http://null colink

    No, you’ve got to be kidding me. Have you seen this in person at all or are you going by some blurry pictures? Not only do they NOT look like what you’re describing at all, they are paired with large decal that clearly advertises the coins. I can’t believe you wasted your time calling someone at the Mint.

  • http://null ked

    Hilarious and ridiculous. I’ve passed this ad campaign twice a day for weeks and it looks like coins, just coins. One time I even tried to guess how much money they used – Cool as a cucumber, just thinking about it. Marketing faux pas? Hardly. It is a bit of a dull campaign maybe, but hardly a faux pas. Looking forward to see what other ads resemble things they totally don’t – Telus Meerkats as terrorists perhaps?

  • http://null tapesonthefloor

    what

  • http://null rek

    HOW MUCH IS VANOC PAYING YOU TO RUN THIS STORY????
    Kidding.

  • http://null qviri

    Hate to pile on, but they didn’t seem like any allusion to gun violence to me either. I wasn’t sure quite /what/ it was at first from afar; I came closer, saw the coins, saw the other ads that say “look for them in your change”, and never thought about this again. Slow news week?

  • http://null montauk

    I’m a little afraid of how you’d do on a Rorschach test. This reminds me of an Oliver Sacks story. Do you see bullet-holes everywhere?

  • http://null ambrose

    it’s an ILLUSION!

  • http://null spacejack

    Okay, people aren’t seeing the bullet holes. Vandalists, you know what you have to do.

  • http://null streethawkac

    To echo the sentiments above, I’ve never seen them as anything but piles of coins.
    Maybe when you purposefully blur the photo, it might look like something else, but I think you’re alone with this one.

  • http://null PickleToes

    Even if these were pictures of glass shattered by bullets, what’s the big deal?

  • http://null tak

    this would have been a good april fool’s post. “is this a prank call” is right.

  • http://www.torontoist.com David Topping

    Gah! What? Am I crazy too? Because I totally see what the reader who sent us the tip, Kelly Rankin, did.
    She wrote about it on her website, and said there:

    Odd, they all look like shattered glass with a dark hole. The hole appears in different locations on the posters … the images makes me think that bullets have just blasted through a series of plate glass windows. It looks like a subway drive-by has just taken place. Finally, we happen upon the one poster that explains all of the rest.

    Based on that tip and her photos and description, we started looking into it. Maybe her photos—taken from further away, and clearer—and her explanation together are more convincingly bullet-hole-y? But I definitely see what she’s talking about, especially when the ads are viewed from a subway train, rather than the platform…

  • mister j

    I saw these a week or so ago and they didn’t look like bullet holes then or now.
    My only thought about them was “Weird: a ‘company’ that makes money pays money to advertise money.”

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    For the record, I thought it was supposed to look like shattered tempered glass when I first saw it from the train as well.

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    I’ve mentioned it long ago in a comment, but this reminds me of once when the subway pulled into Queen station once and one of the two girls beside me asked the other, in all seriousness, why there was a painting of a man’s head made of cheese. Her friend was trying to convince her that it wasn’t supposed to be cheese; just a colour treatment. However, her friend did then wonder if the woman next to him was supposed to be a zombie.
    Now whenever I’m in Queen station, all I see on that mural is Cheesehead Simpson and Zombie McClung.

  • rapi

    nevermind the coins…even if they look like bullet holes…why is that a bad thing??….but why does health canada pays for advertising on tv as if there are other competitors on the market….

  • http://null Ansantari

    Yes, the initial non closeup photo is incredibly blurry. I need to wear glasses and this is what it might look like if I weren’t wearing them. For some reason this reminds me of Mr. Magoo.
    From the moment I saw these I knew it was change. I only investigated further to see what it was about. Hence why this is a semi effective advertising campaign.
    No wonder Mint Markting thought it was a prank call. After reading this “article” I am equally dumbfounded. This make me wonder if you even read your contributors articles before you post them. Crap writing like this weakens your brand.

  • http://null Johnathan-Michael

    You know what y’all you can bite my rear, I personally think that it does look like some kinda shootout happened. SO now may you guys should open your eyes a little or somethin, like think outside the box. When you see a sign that says Pirelli, just think on how much resemblance it has to PeePeeStrelli… Signed : John-Michael

  • http://www.quink.ca chazm

    I saw the three ads from the opposite platform and I thought they might be photos of smashed glass. I even asked my partner what he thought they were. So the campaign is effective and, uh, visually arresting. If I had known they were commemorative coins, I doubt I would have made the gun violence connection. Thanks for explaining the photos, but trying to make the campaign into a P.R. boner is a misfire.

  • Alex Nino Gheciu

    Hey, just for the record: it was a reader’s tip. She made the connection to gun violence, I simply thought it was worth a shot looking into it. From across the platform, yes, I did see what she meant. But then again, I see dead people too, so that’s not saying much ;) .
    If anything, I thought it’d make for a quirky/weird/entertaining post. Sorry if I offended anyone.
    Oh and btw, this whole thread has been one of the gnarliest crucifictions I have ever experienced! (And rather timely too!) Kudos on that. You guys are a riot.
    P.S. Who or what is PeePeeStrelli?

  • http://undefined matt1256

    I like the ads, but I never made the connection with gun violence, nor would I ever. I thought of “Duck Tales” and the lucky dime when I say that. Take a swim in the money bin!