Results tagged “torontounlimited”

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.

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.

Just like Will Smith circa 1998, Tourism Toronto is going to Miami.

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.

Continue reading "Marketing Toronto: Work vs. Play"

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.

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 record considering it's these very same hotel owners that know just how bad business has been lately.

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 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).

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 page, and left a lopsided Frank to invite guests to town. Ontario, why?

- 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.

that this whole hoo-hah is brought to you by the Toronto Branding Project, the same people who gave us Toronto Unlimited. They're calling the street party a 'thank you to everyone who participated in developing the new Toronto brand by giving their thoughts and opinions about Toronto during the public engagement campaign.' Celebrate Toronto runs all weekend, so put on your best freshly-scrubbed smile, and get out there.