For years, Toronto tourism ads have gotten a bad rap. These attempts to bring visitors to our fair city have a knack of running off the rails—try finding the love for the Toronto Unlimited campaign. Today's ad proves this is not a recent trend, even when the provincial government is the culprit. When you hear "Toronto," are images of totem poles and children building castles on a sandy beach the first scenes that come......

Torontoist has had a long history of critiquing Tourism Toronto's lackluster ad campaigns. Remember Toronto Unlimited? We had a field day with that one. And those awful Live With Culture ads? Yuck. But it seems like the appointment of David Whitaker as Tourism Toronto's president back in March injected a little spirit into the agency. Earlier this week, they announced a new campaign targeting gay tourists from the States. The tagline? Toronto: As Gay......

Just like Will Smith circa 1998, Tourism Toronto is going to Miami. In the latest in a series of weird decisions (like that weird-looking Toronto Unlimited logo or that utterly crappy "Live With Culture" ad campaign), the organization has hired David Whitaker as their President. The Financial Post reports that Whitaker, an American citizen, has been working for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau since the early 90s, and is currently the Bureau's Executive......

Yesterday's Star had an interesting article that shed some light on the inner workings of Tourism Toronto, now famous for its embarrassing (and perhaps plagiarized) Toronto Unlimited campaign. Especially of interest to us was the contrast between New York's and Toronto's approaches to attracting visitors with external offices:NYC & Company spokesperson Chris Heywood said the Toronto office will mainly promote leisure travel. But Andrew Weir, vice-president of Tourism Toronto, said his agency finds external......

The Islands of the Bahamas marketing department has finally exacted its revenge on Toronto Unlimited by wrapping two Queen streetcars with The Bahamas' inarguably similar, yet chronologically earlier design. Torontoist has been stalking the elusive Bahamas streetcar all week.......

The Toronto Sun and Torontoist agree on something. That Toronto Unlimited Logo totally bites. It bites so much that a giant room of monkeys working in front of iMacs would eventually design a better logo. Instead of going this experimental route billboard company Astral Media teamed up with OCAD advertising students to come up with alternative slogans for the city. The winner was "Metropolitan Flavour" and an image of a giant ice cream cone that......

Tourism and hospitality can be a tough business in this city. The SARS crisis thankfully never exploded into a full blown public outbreak but scared away enough visitors to the city that it might as well have been. Tourism Toronto, an agency controlled by tourism stakeholders like hotels, has been lacklustre in its marketing efforts. It seems that for every Lord of the Rings musical we're getting a Toronto Unlimited, a pretty poor track......

Observant readers of the Urban Toronto forum pointed out this Aussie ad campaign that asks tourists "Where the bloody hell are you?" We're not sure how the "strong language" will translate in China, Japan, India and Europe where these ads will be translated but in the English speaking world the reception seem to be quite positive. The fact that it piqued the curiousity of foreign journalists is a step in the right direction. And as......

The spectre of Tourism Toronto's bungled Toronto Unlimited Campaign reared its ugly head again today. The city can't seem to make up its mind on just what its brand identity should be and has added "InfoTOgo" as yet another registered trademark. The slogan can be seen on info pillars located around the city (like this one here outside Queen's Park). Torontoist, along with just about every other media commentator in this city has whined about......

Under this blue fog lives the ghost of the Toronto Unlimited campaign. And if it wasn't for you meddling kids, it would still be scaring people away from Toronto.........

- We were asleep at the wheel when the Globe dropped the news that Ontario hired the Toronto Unlimited Firm to rebrand our fair province a few days ago. Our outrage had dissipated a bit. We're too young to become a nasty curmudgeon, we told ourselves. But then the Gehry ad ran again in the Northeast Edition of the Times we picked up in VT. Seems the brilliant brandsmiths have lopped off the most offensive......

Two scoops of Mayor this morning, and both of them nearly as awesome as the Ist List's Number One Gelato Emporium (see above). - First, theatre eater JKelly tells us that Mayor Dave fringed it up at the beer tent last night, chatting with Fringe honcho Derrick Chua, and giving money to those who needed it. - And second, Royson James reports that Mayor Miller agrees that the Toronto Unlimited campaign is an embarrassment to......

Celebrate Toronto with pictures of beautiful, diverse, smiling people. Why are these people so happy? We're not sure. Perhaps they just love a good street party. We're guessing the little one is a Broken Social Scene fan, excited that her favourite band is playing for free. And the dread guy might be a closet Holly Cole head. It's no surprise that this whole hoo-hah is brought to you by the Toronto Branding Project, the same......