Our Green Home to go to 1.9 million Ontario doorsteps

The green bandwagon is beginning to groan a little as commercial interests clamber aboard. Metroland Media Group in cooperation with a consortium of public relations, advertising and polling companies intends to carpet-bomb Ontario with a new quarterly magazine-style newspaper advertising supplement called Our Green Home.

It will be delivered to 1.86 million Ontario homes the week of September 24. About 300,000 will be in Toronto, says a story in Media in Canada, and estimated readership is 3 million.

The magazine is ostensibly published by the Green Group but the senior partner is pretty clearly Metroland, the daily and community newspaper publishing arm of Torstar, publishers of the Toronto Star. A full page ad in the tabloid-sized supplement is $28,000.

Information about the content is sketchy, though a sample posted online suggests that it will be advertorial.

The partners in Green Group are ECO (a public relations firm specializing in environmental issues), UP Marketing (and advertising agency), Oracle Poll (a market research firm) and Petryna Adverting Inc. (an advertising services company).

Of greatest concern is the impact that the clout of the Torstar empire may have on smaller environmental magazines when it comes to selling advertising.