A very weird story from Gerry Nichols of the National Citizens Coalition:
While riding home on the Go Train last night and I saw something mighty peculiar.
Each Go [sic] Train car has one of those electronic advertising signs which usually urge you to buy tickets to some or other event.
But this time the sign had a definite political message.
It kept repeating the phrase: “Stephen Harper Eats Babies” over and over again throughout my entire ride home.
So who runs this advertising network? A firm called Exclusive Advertising. They are quite proud of the ability to get people to watch their advertisements:
Exclusive Advertising Inc. maintains 3,950 poster faces and 790 digital displays in 395 GO Transit passenger cars that cover five million consumers in an 8,000 square kilometer area. Now your advertising can too. GO Transit has over 3,750,000* monthly passengers who are not only a true “captive” audience, but from a consumer group that you would like to reach.
Captive audience? Nice.
The LEDs are one element of the system:
790 L.E.D. units will display your 15 second message (approximately 52 characters) on a three minute loop.
Here is what Gerry was probably looking at:
Do you have a question about the "Stephen Harper Eats Babies" public service announcement? You can get in touch with Exclusive Advertising in a number of ways:
277 Wellington Street West, Suite 701
Toronto, Ontario M5V 3E4Phone: 416-703-4107
Fax: 416-363-3592
Toll Free: 1-888-554-5546Email: marketing@exclusivead.com
Or you can contact the GO Transit folks:
For all advertising inquiries, please contact GO Marketing & Advertising at 416.869.3600 ext 5320.
Did Exclusive Advertising accept a paid ad that read "Stephen Harper Eats Babies"? I very much doubt it. This is much more likely a case of electronic mischief by one of their employees who happens to have a beef with the Conservatives winning an election. As such, this person felt justified, from a social justice point of view, no doubt, to hijack the system to remind Toronto-area commuters of the truth of Stephen Harper's unique dietary fetishes. I've contacted Exclusive Advertising to ask them what they know about the incident and how they plan to investigate it. I'll let you know what I find out.
Exclusive Advertising should be concerned. GO Transit is their only customer, and if they can't control what goes up on those boards...
By the way, neither Exclusive Advertising nor GO Transit have acknowledged the incident in their news releases.
Here's why I think this story should be taken a tad more seriously.
