[MisterF]

Note that I am not excusing posters for indiscriminately slapping their stuff up on every surface - mailboxes, hydro boxes, poles and the like. I agree that it would be much better to have designated walls for public, 'small commercial' messaging, and to leave other surfaces unmolested - no glue, no zillions of staples, no confetti-like shreds of paper. Might actually be a good compromise. But in order for it to work there must be a strong, mutually agreed upon respect for the urban environment - on the part of every strata of society living within it.

This is the approach that most cities in Canada take. Toronto has the "public message centres" which are the designated places for postering. The equivalent other cities:

Vancouver

Calgary

Peterborough

Ottawa

While postering exists in every city, those cities do a better job of keeping their non-postering surfaces clean. The upside of the approach they use is that since posters are in specific places instead of plastered all over the city, people actually stop and look at them (as seen in the Vancouver and Peterborough pics). They become gathering places. They're not only better for the public realm, they're better for the businesses and events they advertise. It's win-win.

 

[jn_12]

^^ How can anybody take that seriously at all? Are you trying to be ridiculous or does it just come to you naturally? Sheesh!

It's not just the hydro poles that get covered in posters, glue, dirt and pieces of paper. They also put that gunk on newspaper boxes, mail boxes, phone booths, utility boxes and almost any object that doesn't move, including buildings. What's left behind is dirty bits of paper and glue. The glue turns black and dirty. Do you actually find dirt, paper and glue all over everything attractive? Lenser, I bet you'd be the first one to freak out if someone tried to put that shit on your place of residence or even on your street. Very few people find that attractive except for the oh so cool types on urban Toronto. Tourists, for the most part, don't like it and neither do most Torontonians.

I am serious, and I think you're the one missing the boat here. Have you talked to tourists? I have. It was my sole job one summer to talk to tourists everyday for 4 months about what they like about this city. I bet I talked to more tourists in this city in a morning than you have in your life. I know that numerous times I had people say that they liked that this was a city had a bit of grit and urban feel to it and that it's a city that's being lived in, not a museum for tourists to explore. As someone who had only visited Toronto a handful of times before moving here 5 years ago, I liked seeing the posters and getting a sense that "things" are happening here. When I have family here to visit, they feel the same. It's urbanism and that grit is attractive to people who either find it refreshingly authentic (which is one of the top drivers of modern tourism) or find it appealing because it is different from their own environment.

Okay, what's your argument?

That your dislike of postering is no better than my dislike of advertising. At the very least, postering democratizes advertising (whether you think it works or not though I'd like to see your stats on how effective it is.). I'd rather live in a messy democracy than pristine authoritarianism.

And this too then, I guess?

It's about intent. Unless you feel the Last Supper is a Christian advertisement then you've missed the point. Not to mention that it's not even located in a public space.

So a few billboards in select locations far above the street downtown is more of a blight upon Toronto's urban landscape than every single hydro pole, lamp post, phone booth, utility box. etc. at street level being covered literally by thousands of posters. This is sad.

You're right, all those ads are sad. Glad you agree.

 

[Lenser]

Have you ever been to another major city? As an urban planner I would assume you have. Posters are definitely not part of the "urban aesthetic" in most of the cities I've been to. I don't get the argument that posters and urban clutter somehow contribute to urban vitality or make an area less sterile. Cities like Chicago, Madrid, and London aren't plagued with ugly public realm that Toronto puts up with - would you say those cities are more sterile or less vital because of it?

I don't know. It's been a long time since I lived in NYC. Too long since I've last visited, either. Never been to Chicago, Madrid or London. Nor am I an urban planner - don't know where you got that impression, but I'm happy to correct it. However, must I be an urban planner to comment on what I think is OK in my town?

 

[doady]

You're right, all those ads are sad. Glad you agree.

Yes, that totally explains why you have zero problem with thousands of ads on every vertical surface at street level, but are against a few ads on billboards in designated locations far above the street.

 

[jn_12]

Yes, that totally explains why you have zero problem with thousands of ads on every vertical surface at street level, but are against a few ads on billboards in designated locations far above the street.

You're right, I should have explained further. I had multi-quoted a bunch of posts and forgot that I included yours, and didn't have time to comment so i went back and posted a quick tongue-in-cheek response.

Anyways, I'd actually argue that strategic ads such as the examples I posted before are far worse because they are strategically located. For example, that one picture of the billboard in front of the city's skyline ruins that perspective of the city (as much as actually very much against caring about skylines, it still infringes on the view of the city that some do happen to enjoy). Another example was the infotogo signs (it's a program I know well), which not only are visually unappealing and intrusive, but actually take away public space. Meanwhile the ads at Dundas Square encircle a busy public space, for the singular sake of "being our Times Square". I'd rather see parks and public squares as entirely Ad free spaces.

Now, if we're going to allow all of those blights on the urban realm, then why are we against people (you, me, anyone) putting up a poster on a piece of infrastructure already in place? I'd suggest that a street pole as an object in an urban environment is the antithesis of strategic advertising initiatives. They're placed strategically to not be in the way, and their ubiquity allows them to blend into the urban environment without anyone really giving them much thought. Their position is not offensive or making an overt attempt to distract. Putting a poster on them doesn't change that.

I've also said many times that I feel that postering is a democratic act in the sense that it allows anyone to get their message heard. If we're going to allow advertising of any form, I don't believe that simply because a large company has the financial ability to buy and lobby for more ad space, that they deserve a monopoly on advertising (and by monopoly, I don't mean Bell is the only company that can advertise throughout the city. I mean it more in a large business vs. small business/community perspective). I've already suggested that in my neighbourhood (City Place/Harbourfront), it's common for posters to be put up by entrepreneurs such as dogwalkers, painters, movers, etc. Postering has also become a means for sharing information about community meetings and to get people interested in developing the Harboufront and City Place into a community of its own (which is a rather huge criticism that people seem to have of the area). I really do see it as a positive.

Are there other options? Someone above posted the "designated poster boards" which I guess are okay in the sense that they can be strategically placed and allow a bit of a level playing field, but I wouldn't want to have to depend on the city to enable this. What if Astral doesn't put up a board in my neighbourhood? What if it's not actually in a good location? What if I find that I'm not getting the results I was once getting from advertising on street poles? Ultimately, the best option to me, if you're going to fight postering, is to fight advertising in the public realm as a whole and the fact is advertising is only going to get more invasive in terms of our personal and public space with time. Until people want to fight that, I'm not only okay with postering, I prefer it.

 

[MisterF]

I don't know. It's been a long time since I lived in NYC. Too long since I've last visited, either. Never been to Chicago, Madrid or London. Nor am I an urban planner - don't know where you got that impression, but I'm happy to correct it. However, must I be an urban planner to comment on what I think is OK in my town?

Sorry I thought it was you who pointed out that you were an urban planner, turns out it was jn_12. I was just making the point that illegal postering is no more necessary to the urban fabric here than in any other city.

 

[Lenser]

No sweat. I was about to applaud the last post of jn_12, as his sentiments are pretty close to my own - especially that last sentence of his.

 

[Mississauga Slim]

Further to the point about multiple posterings of the same item; probably what happens is that your conscious brain stops seeing them anymore, yet it's still being absorbed. I believe several scientific studies have been done pointing to our unconscious absorption of messages embedded in advertising.

Yes, this is exactly how a lot of advertising works. Like, for example, the countless signs all over the world that simply say "Drink Coca-Cola." They are ubiquitous. You might see dozens of them in a single day. Similarly, the large billboard space that Sony has purchased along the Gardiner for decades; before being retrofitted with current billboard technology, it didn't even advertise a specific product. It just flashed "SONY, SONY, SONY, SONY . . ." over and over again in a huge 4x4 neon array.

Now you might wonder what the point of such advertising is. Who in the world hasn't heard of Coca-Cola? And do the people at Sony expect drivers to suddenly pull off the highway and buy a Sony product just because they see the company name flashing over and over again on the commute to work everyday? Of course not.

The purpose of this kind of advertising is to ensure that when you eventually do go into a restaurant or convenience store to purchase a soft drink, the very first choice that pops into your head is going to be Coca-Cola. When you go to buy a TV at the electronics store, you will immediately consider the one that has SONY written on it as a top choice.

This kind of advertising works because the products in question are very general in appeal. It is practically guaranteed that everybody who passes the Sony sign will be purchasing consumer electronics at some point. It is a virtual certainty that at least 90% of the people who see the Coca-Cola signs all day will purchase a soft drink sooner or later.

On the other hand, if you are the kind of person who never buys soft drinks, no amount of exposure to "Drink Coca-Cola" signs will ever motivate you to buy one. That is because, contrary to popular belief, advertisers have no power to create new behaviors. All they can hope to do is influence existing behaviors. If advertisers could create new behaviors, we would see ads like "BUY MORE CARS," "DRINK BEER," "SMOKE CIGARETTES." But advertisers don't want you to drink beer. They want you to drink Molson Canadian. They don't want you to smoke cigarettes. They want you to buy Player's Light.

Which brings us to the problem of so much postering. Like the previous Spanish lessons example, which I think was even more pervasive than the Coke signs, if that's possible. If it were likely that you, me, and the thousands of other people who see this message all day everyday were, at any time now, just about to go in for some Spanish lessons, then this postering campaign would be very effective. Whatever school puts these things up would certainly be my first, if not my only choice. The problem is that I have no real interest in learning Spanish, nor I feel safe in assuming, do the vast majority of people who see these posters. The advertisers seem to believe that they are able to create a behavior: the desire to "Think in Spanish." They do not have this ability. Many street posters share this fault.

So, the summary is that bombarding a general audience with the same simple message over and over again is an effective advertising strategy only if your goal is limited to influencing a behavior that you know your audience is going to engagen in anyway. If you think that you can use this method to create some new behavior, it isn't going to work.

 

[junctionist]

It may be impossible to ban postering in Canadian cities because that would be unconstitutional, as Montreal found out. (Interestingly enough, Montreal did ban newspaper boxes under mayor Jean Drapeau apparently for aesthetic reasons.) The fact is, however, that postering in Toronto is results in messy streetscapes which encourage indifference towards the appearance of the public realm. It's rather uninspiring to see chunks of dissolved posters lying on the sidewalks and streets after a storm. There are too many posters, meaning that the community messages can get lost in the chaos. Postering should be limited to specific places with quality street furniture provided to accommodate it. Toronto's postering boards under the Astral street furniture deal are too small and too few in number. Also, the city might not even have to make any changes if it actually enforced its bylaws on postering. A lot of the organizations putting up posters could be fined, for instance, for not taking their posters down.

 

[Lenser]

If it were likely that you, me, and the thousands of other people who see this message all day everyday were, at any time now, just about to go in for some Spanish lessons, then this postering campaign would be very effective. Whatever school puts these things up would certainly be my first, if not my only choice. The problem is that I have no real interest in learning Spanish, nor I feel safe in assuming, do the vast majority of people who see these posters. The advertisers seem to believe that they are able to create a behavior: the desire to "Think in Spanish." They do not have this ability. Many street posters share this fault.

So, the summary is that bombarding a general audience with the same simple message over and over again is an effective advertising strategy only if your goal is limited to influencing a behavior that you know your audience is going to engagen in anyway. If you think that you can use this method to create some new behavior, it isn't going to work.

Agreed. But then again, I don't believe the people posting really want you to change your behaviour. It's just low-level advertising, which works on the same principles as big commercial advertising. The hope is that, if you want to learn Spanish, you'll go with the people who made that specific poster. Why do they blanket the city with their posters? To compete with (and possibly overcome) other blanket poster campaigns. The noise to signal ratio is so high with this stuff, the posters assume they have to be always pumping up the numbers, just to punch through.

Yes, it makes for some seriously tattered textures out there on the streets. Again, as junctionist says, it could probably be hugely curbed if the city enforced its bylaws. Perhaps that's the way to go. Yet there seems to be this persistent belief that significantly changing the current state of affairs would require nothing more than political will - no money, no allocation of resources to provide/improve street furniture accommodating posters in specific contexts while rendering other areas off-limits (and diligently enforcing those areas).

It's going to take money - and a period of transition/adjustment - to make it stick.

 

[hawc]

So far it's working. King West (East of Spadina) is remarkably clean. Cleanest it's ever been.

 

[Groperty]

Yes, flyers can be informative but can start to look untidy (not to mention the litter they cause) when there are multiple layers of spammy flyers. Maybe the spaces should be regulated by a company? People can pay for the advertisement space and the company will ensure that nobody posts on top of your flyer and they keep it looking tidy.

 

[Lenser]

I don't see that strategy working... the competition for flyer space is so intense it would simply make that company rich... until such time as people tire of the extortionate prices for "approved" postering, then go back to putting up stuff wherever they please. Postering is so ubiquitous downtown because it's so cheap... that is its primary attraction.

 

[jn_12]

Have you ever been to another major city? As an urban planner I would assume you have. Posters are definitely not part of the "urban aesthetic" in most of the cities I've been to. I don't get the argument that posters and urban clutter somehow contribute to urban vitality or make an area less sterile. Cities like Chicago, Madrid, and London aren't plagued with ugly public realm that Toronto puts up with - would you say those cities are more sterile or less vital because of it?

Sorry I thought it was you who pointed out that you were an urban planner, turns out it was jn_12. I was just making the point that illegal postering is no more necessary to the urban fabric here than in any other city.

I think my point with regards to mentioning that I am an urban planner was just to suggest that I have a background in an area where these things matter. I don't know if it holds any weight (and really the opinion of a planner is no better than that of a dogwalker or a doctor), but I figured it helped to imply that this and other urban design issues are things that I've thought of in some depth. I've never been to Madrid but I've spent time in both Chicago and London, and I can say that Chicago does have postering (simply Street View some areas and you'll find it pretty quickly), but you're right that London is primarily not postered. My guess is that it's a cultural thing in the same way you'll regularly find people wearing large signboards with ads on them in London's streets, which certainly wouldn't happen here. I don't think they've actively fought against postering (I could be wrong, but unless they're militaristic about preventing it, you'd think that the odd poster would slip through the cracks, but that really isn't the case).

And really, I don't think my argument was that cities need to have posters to be urban or gritty. It just so happens ours does have posters and it helps to contribute something to our urban realm. Some seem to view it as a negative, whereas I think of it as a positive (as I described in a larger post above).

 

[MisterF]

Anyways, I'd actually argue that strategic ads such as the examples I posted before are far worse because they are strategically located. For example, that one picture of the billboard in front of the city's skyline ruins that perspective of the city (as much as actually very much against caring about skylines, it still infringes on the view of the city that some do happen to enjoy). Another example was the infotogo signs (it's a program I know well), which not only are visually unappealing and intrusive, but actually take away public space. Meanwhile the ads at Dundas Square encircle a busy public space, for the singular sake of "being our Times Square".

Can we please stop saying that? That's like saying we build skyscrapers for the singular sake of "being our Empire State Building". There are dozens of cities with districts like that, and the Yonge and Dundas area had loads of ads and oversized signs long before the square was built. Sorry, just a pet peeve.

Now, if we're going to allow all of those blights on the urban realm, then why are we against people (you, me, anyone) putting up a poster on a piece of infrastructure already in place? I'd suggest that a street pole as an object in an urban environment is the antithesis of strategic advertising initiatives. They're placed strategically to not be in the way, and their ubiquity allows them to blend into the urban environment without anyone really giving them much thought. Their position is not offensive or making an overt attempt to distract. Putting a poster on them doesn't change that.

Even if legit ads are ugly, they're still there with the permission of the property owner or the city (or both) and the ones on city property contribute much needed revenue to the city. There's a difference between that and tattered paper signs all over every surface possible, leaving glue residue, rusted staples, and garbage blowing all over the street.

Are there other options? Someone above posted the "designated poster boards" which I guess are okay in the sense that they can be strategically placed and allow a bit of a level playing field, but I wouldn't want to have to depend on the city to enable this. What if Astral doesn't put up a board in my neighbourhood? What if it's not actually in a good location? What if I find that I'm not getting the results I was once getting from advertising on street poles?

Now we're debating details. A poster board not being put in a certain area isn't a failing of poster boards in general. Flaws like that can always be fixed. Poster boards are more effective for the simple reason that they're not ubiquitous. They grab your attention when you walk by, especially if they're well placed and there aren't posters everywhere else you look. By the way, not getting the results you want isn't a reason to vandalize public property. I can't jump the turnstiles on the subway just because I don't want to pay...although I'm sure that free transit would be more democratic.

Ultimately, the best option to me, if you're going to fight postering, is to fight advertising in the public realm as a whole and the fact is advertising is only going to get more invasive in terms of our personal and public space with time. Until people want to fight that, I'm not only okay with postering, I prefer it.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I've never been to Madrid but I've spent time in both Chicago and London, and I can say that Chicago does have postering (simply Street View some areas and you'll find it pretty quickly), but you're right that London is primarily not postered. My guess is that it's a cultural thing in the same way you'll regularly find people wearing large signboards with ads on them in London's streets, which certainly wouldn't happen here. I don't think they've actively fought against postering (I could be wrong, but unless they're militaristic about preventing it, you'd think that the odd poster would slip through the cracks, but that really isn't the case).

And really, I don't think my argument was that cities need to have posters to be urban or gritty. It just so happens ours does have posters and it helps to contribute something to our urban realm. Some seem to view it as a negative, whereas I think of it as a positive (as I described in a larger post above).

I'd say just the opposite. The posters don't add to the urban realm, they take away from it. While there are posters in Chicago, it's not anywhere close to the extent that it is in Toronto. By the way, I highly recommend Madrid.