The more you hate Toronto, the more we have to love says Toronto Life
Toronto Life has created a "movie trailer" to promote its June 2010 issue. The issue's theme is about things to love about Toronto and the trailer riffs off this by enumerating the things that other Canadian cities hate about Toronto.
Labels: promotion
posted by D. B. Scott at
12:11 pm
15 Comments:
Did somebody not have time to come up with a more original idea? This is so tired. So lame. So safe.
Ad Genius: Did you know that Toronto is hated by the rest of Canada?
Sharon McAuley: No, I had no idea.
Ad Genius: Yeah, people in Quebec think we're turds.
Doug Knight: Brilliant concept. Cutting edge. [Hair toss pause.] Run with it!
This spot has not one ounce of edge, immediacy, or anything resembling even the vaguest grasp of how humour operates. It's as corny and faux bitchy as the magazine itself. "Moncton flips us the bird." Stop, please, stop. My hernia can't take any more.
Here's a news flash for editorial: We already like Toronto (we'd love it if it had a better city magazine that wasn't acting like smarter, in-the-know version of the tourism board). Why? Well, for starters, we don't live in Moncton or Regina or Ottawa and we couldn't care less whether they liked Toronto or not.
Sarah Fulford's you're-a-loser-if-you're-still-writing-for-Canadian-magazines form of editorial nurturing would be a lot less hilarious if Toronto Life had even the tiniest molecular hint of the vision and execution that Adam Moss, the guy we'd all be writing for if we were any good, has at New York.
the cover idea is a blatant ripoff of kurt andersen's new york magazine (circa 1992). back then, however, n.y. was in pretty bad shape so it actually made sense
Those that are Toronto-born love Toronto unconditionally.
It's those desperado imports that Toronto Life infects with that incorrect hipper-than-thou sniveling virus of condescension.
Toronto Life never gets anything right, never has.
A writerly friend of mine calls Toronto "a hotbed of mediocrity."
That T.O. Life cover lends credence to his point of view.
A much better idea would be "100 ways to make Toronto better". But we can't admit to faults, can we?
I CHOOSE to live here, and still can't handle the congratulatory, haw-haw-the-rest-of-Canada-hates-us grandstanding.
Ooooh sniping and leaving anonymous comments on an industry blog... puh-lease.
Chicken-shit anonymous commenters and haters.
@Boy Reporter:
And you are...?
How hilarious.
Boy Reporter is the unpaid intern Toronto Life asked to come up with a brilliant concept to promote their upcoming issue. With the money they saved, they then hired a designer and a guy with a grown-up voice to execute. Boy Reporter's Mom thought it was great, so shut up already.
If you weren't too lazy to click the link you could have learned everything there is to know about "Boy Reporter." He's not in any way hiding.
Some people just live to hate.
I might point out that commenters have the option of giving their own name or a URL, using an OpenID or remaining anonymous.
@ Boy Reporter
Assuming you are not being completely sarcastic your "concept" should be amended to borrowed/stolen idea. InStyle, Walrus, Vogue to name a few have done this well before you "conceived" your idea.
I really value the anonymity of this site. In an industry this small, and most of it based in a single city, it seems a necessary evil. Sometimes it's the only way to hear the honest truth about things. But that does also require some degree of moderation, and it would be nice to see a bit more of that on this site.
Boyreporter is perfectly entitled to call out anon sniping for what it is, and the snipers, although a symptom of everything that's wrong with our industry, have every right to comment on Toronto Life. All publications are open to criticism all the time.
But come on, personal attacks about ppl's mothers and unpaid internships (most are unpaid, btw; no correlation to the quality of the interns)? Some moderation seems to be in order here, DB. Please.
Also, to the last anon commenter - true, but there are very few original ideas. A lot of what mags do is recycle, or borrow, or build upon, other ideas.
And yes, I too am posting anonymously. I don't want every offhand comment I've ever made in a conversation to be google-able forever. To me, it's akin to chatting with a stranger at the bus stop and then having it recorded forever. Not cuz I'm ashamed of my comments, but I just don't need every word and every moment recorded forever.
Wow. "Anonymous" really hates the campaign.
Granted, it's pretty lame--I like the defiance of it, the unapologetic pride in the city, but it's also a little juvenile and simplistic. As a proud but non-native Torontonian, it feels to me more like civic smugness than civic pride.
Of course none of you know how often I do not allow comments. And many perhaps would apply different filters. Sometimes people disagree with my judgement; fair enough. I didn't see Anonymous 1:32 as making a personal attack on someone's mother or unpaid interns.
Anonymous 1:32 was not attacking Boy Reporter's mother or unpaid interns. That was a joke and thank god at least DB got it. Boy Reporter is not an unpaid intern at Toronto Life; he works for the online department at the National Post (though I suspect these two jobs are not too far off in terms of compensation). Ron Nurwisah, the respected young (?) CanWest employee who dreamed up the Boy Reporter handle all on his own, has shown admirable courage in chastising all of those "chicken-shit anonymous commenters". He's also done everyone a tremendous service distilling the critical response to this promo ad to its essence - hate. (Too bad he had to borrow from Kanye West et al in the process.) That said, I seem to recall a day when one could think an ad or a song or a book was, well, not very good, without being called a "hater." But, hey, that's progress. And I'm looking forward to reading a defense of the award-winning Toronto Life spot, the cover design, and the editorial package on his popular Boy Reporter blog. Obviously, he really loved it.
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