The most confusing thing I have seen all week

Fortunately, it's only Monday morning.

It's an ambient idea from CP+B Canada, for Tourism Toronto. But what is it?

According to the submission on Ads of The World:

"In order to curate the vacation photos Toronto visitors take and put online, we unleashed 21, 8-foot snowmen designed by top contemporary artists and placed strategically at key tourist spots in the city. When you take a photo with the snowmen, a famous Toronto scene is featured as the backdrop. And to encourage the photos would be shared, Tourism Toronto is donating $2 to Starlight Children’s Foundation for every snowman photo uploaded to the campaign’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/visittoronto, up to $50,000. And, we’ve integrated each photo takers’ network, by offering another $1 for every ‘Like’ each photo generates, further expanding this campaign’s reach. To date, more than $24,000 has been raised."

I would like to point out that this submission comes from a country in which English is frequently spoken. "In order to curate"? Okay, that's just shitty jargon. But the rest of the write-up is similarly convoluted.

They set up giant snowmen in popular Toronto tourism photo op sites, then provided a fundraising incentive to share them on Tourism Toronto's Facebook page and get their friends involved. Was that so hard to say?

I am amazed that such a famous agency brand would leave the adblog PR to someone who don't write good.

But the most confusing thing about it all is this:

Why does the snow"man" have a vulva?

Sex, lies, and the politics of hate

Remember last week's awful ad (new window) from the "Institute for Canadian Values" about Ontario's proposed sex ed curriculum? With its blatantly anti-GLBTQ message and manipulative imagery, it even got the National Post to apologize for running it in the first place.

Well, there's another one. A pamphlet. And according to Torontoist it was paid for by Ontario's Progressive (ha!) Conservative Party:

The Globe and Mail gives Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak's defence of the publication:

When asked if he supported the message, Mr. Hudak turned the question around on the Liberals and suggested the party was out of touch with mainstream voters.

“My little girl Miller – it’s her birthday today – is just four and she has started JK,” he said. “The notion that Dalton McGuinty thinks a priority in education is sex-education curriculum starting at Grade 1 when they should be learning their ABCs and how to tie their shoes is another example of how Dalton McGuinty has lost touch with mainstream Ontario.”

The Globe has also endorsed the Liberal Premier, Dalton McGuinty, for re-election on Thursday's provincial vote.

Interestingly, the quotes in the ad are not from any proposed provincial curriculum, but rather from a Toronto District School Board booklet on "Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism".

And as CBC points out, the copy is full of misrepresentations and outright fabrications.

The flyer includes one quote from the document —"cross-dressing for six-year olds"— that can't be found anywhere in the TDSB document. The flyer also says the quotes are taken from the K-12 curriculum. But the quotes are not included in the curriculum, only in the anti-homophobia resource guide.

This election campaign was already ugly. Now it's evil, too.

(Thanks to Martha W. for the tip)

Some sweet retro work for vintage clothing

When I was a teen in 1980s Kingston, Ontario, going vintage clothing shopping in Toronto was kind of a "thing". So this nice bit of work in I Believe in Advertising gave me a smile:

I was in the market for skinny ties myself, but it reminded me of some old friends.

There are three more ads in this series from Grey, TO, but they're not as elegant. See them at IBIA.