Tree as billboard

Just in time for golf season – lessons. The Thornhill Golf and Country Club ‘ads’ by Toronto ad agency John St. targeted burgeoning but frustrated golfers with this insightful campaign. Actual golf clubs wrapped around trees included tags with the Thornhill’s particulars, as well as the contact details for lessons with a golf pro.

An anti-love promotion

Toronto-based private equity firm Argosy Partners is offering the Shotgun Fund, which provides funding to business partners who need to buy out their exes. To promote the product to the business community, Toronto’s Dentsu Canada created a love-gone-bad campaign which launched on Valentine’s Day and included an ihatemypartner.com microsite. Salesmen of dead flowers hit Toronto streets in T-shirts with the web address, and anti-Valentine’s Day cards were distributed. Urinal mats in bars and restaurants in the financial district sported a URL and a ‘target zone’ with the phrase ‘Your partner’s face goes here.’ Viral videos showing one partner taking revenge were posted on YouTube and mailed to a targeted list. Ain’t love grand?

Tough marketing

Gun shell casings branded stayout.ca were dropped in youth hangouts in Vancouver recently to trigger buzz for an anti-gang violence campaign by

A Community that Cares, a grassroots advocacy group. The effort, by the Vancouver wing of ad agency DDB Canada, also included faux gang recruitment posters and a TV spot. Ads comparing gang life to being infected by HIV or cancer all linked back to a toll-free number where callers were told the ‘gang member’ they wanted was dead or in jail.

Selling Rosedale

Homeowners in some of Toronto and Ottawa’s chichiest neighbourhoods were surely taken aback when they received eviction notices brazenly pasted to their doors. An awareness-building effort for the UN High Commission for Refugees by BBDO’s Toronto office conveyed to well-off citizens in the developed world how it might feel to be suddenly kicked out of their homes. Radio spots supplemented the effort, which has now been expanded into a global multimedia campaign.

There’s something fishy about this ad

As the saying more or less goes, giving a man a fish will feed him for a day, but sending him one in the mail may help shore up donations. Yes, coolers with real, fresh fish wrapped in the call-to-action were sent to wealthy execs in Toronto recently. The, ahem, poignant effort for Care Canada by Toronto’s JWT and Ethos | JWT was designed to leverage the saying while raising venture capital for the non-profit.

Zen-vertising

Hey, stressed out Bay Street type! It’s time to chill out, take a breather, get bendy. For Toronto’s Octopus Garden Yoga Studio, Toronto ad agency John St. targeted budding yogis in their most anti-Zen moment by placing speed bumps on sidewalks in the city’s financial district. At bustling times of day over a few weeks, the bank tower denizens were braked by this prescription for stress relief: ‘Slow Down,’ and the studio’s website.