Ad space. Ad rant.

This holiday the city of Toronto has graciously gifted us with a whole new ad format. Maybe you’ve seen them. Maybe you’ve even walked into them. They are 3-sided posters smack dab in the middle of our sidewalks. If you’re sensing sarcasm, you are correct.

Over the last week or so I’ve notice more and more of these new sidewalk billboards all over town. They are like bus shelters but without the shelter or the bus stop, instead they just stand there with one purpose – to be an ad.

Did our streets really need more ads? As it is, we have bus shelters, bus wraps, posters, wild postings, billboards, taxi wraps and even ads on top of taxis. And now we have these honking posters that get in your way and take up our precious space. What really gets me is that atop each poster there’s a lower case ‘i’ for information and beneath it is a phone number tourists can call for city info. So, we are luring our visitors towards these signs in hopes of attaining useful info and instead they get an ad.

It’s all just all too much. Too many messages, too many signs, too many ads. I know it’s my business and I love creating ads, I do. I also love seeing our work up all around the city. But we never want to annoy people. These new sidewalk billboards are so in your face they are bound to have the opposite effect. Cluttering the city doesn’t make anyone want to buy anything. The media is getting in the way of the message.

Once again the city of Toronto has made a decision based purely on profit. How people interact with the ad, how they feel around it and how it looks was totally overlooked. There was no planning involved – there never is. We are reactive, opting for a quick buck over great design, green space and breathing room.

So what’s next? Ads in parks, school playgrounds, trees? You know it is coming. We shouldn’t stand for it.