#LaPizzaWeek Montreal figures women don't eat pizza anyway, so...

Despite the tagline "Everybody Loves Pizza," La Pizza Week Montreal has chosen to insult at least half of humanity with this poster.

The Italian headline translates literally to "this cock doesn't rub me," although it's a colloquial phrase that means "I don't give a fuck." Well, obviously.

Whether this piece of work offends your feminist principles, your creative sensibilities (as it's really awfully executed), or your love of Loi 101, you might want to let your favourite Montreal pizzeria know that their name is on this nonsense.

Update:

For what it's worth, I just spoke to the organizer who insists the image was posted without his permission and it's coming down.

— Toula Drimonis (@ToulasTake) September 18, 2017

More update: I had assumed it was stock, but the pic appears to be from a catalogue or something. Grossest thing is that the image is used in "pizzagate" posts.

Montreal cinema owner inflames Twitter with "Hockey Widow" promo

If there's one Canadian stereotype that has a strong basis in reality, it's not weird pronunciations of "out" or niceness — it's an obsession with hockey. The game is deeply rooted in our culture. While not every Canadian is a hockey fanatic, it's safer to assume a Canadian has a favourite hockey team than a favourite type of poutine.

Which makes it all the more baffling that a cinema chain in Montreal, "the Mecca of Hockey," would so casually insult female Habs fans by running a women-only promotion for "Hockey Widows" on game nights.

The CBC has compiled a collection of Tweets about the issue, including cinema owner Vincenzo Guzzo's defensive non-apologies.

@HamJam_9 Where is the insult? She isn't naked or in sex cloths or mopping the floors or doing other steriotipical BS thing that we see...
— Vincenzo Guzzo (@Guzzo_Vincenzo) October 14, 2014

@JessRusnak Wanted to reward women. Anything wrong with giving a benefit to women only? Maybe Senior discounts should also be given to all!
— Vincenzo Guzzo (@Guzzo_Vincenzo) October 14, 2014

Oh well. Canada's women's national ice hockey team has won gold in the past four Olympics, and is one of the winningest teams in history. So I guess it will take more than a sexist local cinema promotion to turn Canadian women away from the game.

Pothole season is here. Distracted driving remains a year-round problem.

While checking his iPhone for a pothole-free route, he killed 4 pedestrians.

Montreal's Taxi came up with a clever campaign called "Pothole Season" that includes a site where drivers can report the winter's ravages on their roads online, which can be avoided by using an iPhone app.

The only problem is, you aren't supposed to be using your iPhone while driving.

You are also not supposed to be drinking coffee...

Or eating donuts...

 Or putting on make-up.

If you're trying to drive safely in Montreal with these folks on the road, potholes might be the least of your worries.

Via Ads of The World.

UPDATE: Taxi tells me the app has a hands-free function:



The ads are still a problem, though.

Graceful sexploitation?

It's a very cool ad, actually, even though its anonymous sexuality evokes the James Bond era of the original series. But hey — the ad's made in Montreal (by BBR). And it's actually a lot classier that the usual exploitation of the series' Canadian female lead, Grace Park.

There's another ad in the campaign, but it's not that notable.

Via Ads of The World

F'd Ad Fridays: Bad to the bone

I guess he was just excited to be the new... ummm... face of Canadian fashion.

Got infographic?

This infographics project by Montreal designer Audreé Lapierre for ffunction is over a year old, but it's currently surging on BuzzFeed.

 The rationale:

"The nutritional facts are used to brand the packaging as well as giving useful information about the product. The data visualisations offer a clean graphic approach of the caloric ratio, nutrient balance completeness, ingredients and their specific amount of carbohydrate, fat, protein and sodium per serving."

Now that's refreshing!

Back to the future

The Year 2000 was a busy one for me. I was blissfully courting the woman who would become my wife, and lobbying for my first Creative Director position. So somehow I missed everything that was going on in Canada 11 years ago...

(Click to make readable) Imagine how much metropolitan Montreallers loved having their city renamed "Ville Trudeau". (After all, they were so pleased about the renaming of Dorval airport!) But at least they are bigger than superburban Oshawa-Toronto-Hamilton.

Artificial light? When did they invent artificial light? And putting kids into lunar exile sounds like a great idea (at least between the ages of 12 and 19)

Amazing! In the old days, we had to make do with 2-D murals of tacky vistas.

Breakfast pellets? Shopping on the videophone? Now there's a reality I can identify with.

George doesn't really like soy steaks, but he humours Madge so that he won't end up having to get his jollies with the robot or the suction chute.

Travel agent?

Hey cool! That guy can Skype with his watch!

Fred would later go into hiding, and change his name to Larry Wachowski.

I wish I had memory playback. Maybe I'd recall when the computers took over, or what I did with my iWatch.

The cartoon was published in the Montreal Gazette in 1969, and was posted in BoingBoing this morning. Its original online appearance was in Paleofuture. Great find!

I am offended by this ad

The Toronto Star reports (and rather gleefully, I should add) that the following ad "is a tad too sexy — even for the famously sultry City of Montreal":



Apparently, a city official calls the advertisement sexist and "not something Montreal could endorse".

Montreal, people.



In Pammy's words:

"In a city that is known for its exotic dancing and for being progressive and edgy, how sad that a woman would be banned from using her own body in a political protest over the suffering of cows and chickens. In some parts of the world, women are forced to cover their whole bodies with burqas -- is that next? I didn't think that Canada would be so puritanical."

You obviously have your own opinion about whether this ad is sexist, smut, or "you GO girl" empowerment. But it's pretty damn tame for PETA, who have at other times shown the Canadian ex-pat topless and in a lettuce bikini. They show skin, someone gets mad, people talk about it, and PETA gets the attention it so desperately craves. Old story.

In fact, the most offensive part of this whole tale is how hackneyed the ad concept is. Real live PETA protesters have been doing this one — in a far more daring way — for years.




UPDATE: Interesting note from PETA regarding their use of naked women in ads (via @Treehugger):

"First, please know that PETA isn't using women's bodies. Women are using their own bodies. The women who use their bodies as political tools do so willingly and gladly, and they don't like to be told to cover up by other women who don't agree with their choices. They feel that they have the right to express themselves in this way, and they don't want some women dictating and criticizing them for how much skin they wish to show any more than women who lived during the early days of feminism and before wanted men to tell them to cover up.

As for PETA, we recognize the simple fact that there's a lot of competition for consumers' attention, so we are creative and provocative in order to make sure that people do turn around and stare and then learn something about the cruel industries that we fight. Our activists and celebrity supporters gladly use their bodies as a sure-fire way to draw attention to how animals are exploited. The women are not exploited--they are happy to participate in a social cause. They show about as much flesh as you might see at the beach. They are proud to be able to use their bodies for a good purpose--to draw attention to the suffering of elephants who are beaten bloody and forced to live in chains and to the plight of other animals who endure torture, isolation, terror, and violent death. And it works--Olivia Munn's participation in our anti-circus campaign prompted more than 300 clothed people to participate in our protest against Ringling Bros. at the Staples Center in Los Angeles last week.

As an organization headed and founded by a woman and staffed largely by feminist women, PETA knows about the serious problems that women face, both here in the U.S. and in countries where women are forced to cover up and shut up. Impassioned individuals have been "going naked" since Lady Godiva protested taxes. We believe that all people should be free to use their minds and bodies as political instruments."

Montreal style social marketing

In Montreal today for some soundtrack work on a TV spot, I was stopped by one of the few posters on St. Catherine Street that was actually safe for work:



The glare and the snow flurries you see are exactly how I saw it, too. And so at first I didn't notice anything unusual about it. But this being Montreal, I knew there had to be more to it. So I stopped and looked:



In case it's still hard to see, the phone cord is wrapped around his shoulder in the shape of a comforting hand. Okay, so you don't see many of those phones anymore, and it could come off a little creepy. But at least it's clever.

The big question is, are ads like this too clever? I stopped and looked because I'm an adman, and Montreal is French Canada's own Madison Avenue. I like to see what's up around town.

Clever visuals have been the bread and butter of Montreal (and Quebec) ads for some time now. The people I know from Quebec seem to enjoy decoding them. But then again, most of the Quebeckers I know are involved in my industry in one way or another.

Part of me wonders if this is an effective approach for reaching the severely depressed. Will they see it? Will they act on it? Someone needs to tell me, because I'm not from here. And I occasionally suspect that the competitiveness of the local industry might be outpacing the ability of the target markets to comprehend the messages.

I hope I'm wrong, though. Because it's kind of a neat ad. What do you think?

Greetings from 'ollywood Nord

We're on-set today, shooting another Federal Government ad. In the past few months, we've shot in locations such as government offices, an aviation school, and a steel mill. But this one is different. We're actually creating a world from scratch.



Welcome to the coolest market in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Don't look for it in Lonely Planet, because it's actually on a sound stage by the chilly banks of the mighty St. Lawrence River. But just for one day, we're transporting a bunch of actors to Sicily. Or maybe it's Cyprus. Or Greece? Turkey? Lebanon?

The point is not to be too specific. The scenario is a Canadian tourist abroad, drinking in the local culture. The market has a region, but not a nation. It should remind viewers of the coolest travel experiences they've ever had... anywhere in the world.



It's our own little exotic Sesame Street, complete with all the people in the neighbourhood... even chickens. We're in Mel's, a group of hangar-like buildings used for Quebec and Hollywood films alike. The posters on the walls of the corridors boast of some of the movies filmed here: 300, Catch Me if You Can, The Aviator, and others.



At Acart, we've long benefited from a tight relationship with the Montreal film industry. Just two hours from our agency's front door, we have access to world-class production resources and people driven by the passion of knowing they are at the epicentre of their own culture's creative expression. This is the real Hollywood North, even if they often drop the "H".

Our production house on this shoot is Traffik, with Director Dominique Laurence. I won't reveal the client, or give any plot spoilers right now. Stay tuned for a full look behind-the-scenes when the ad is done and approved in a few weeks. It's gonna be way cool.

The Ultimate Creative Director Shirt

Not everyone knows this about me, but I actually started my career writing some fashion. I was never really in the industry, but when I used to spend time in Milan and was looking for freelance opportunities, it was only natural.

So, with that in mind, I present Change Marketing: Fashion Edition.


This is my favourite shirt, made by Icebreaker of New Zealand. What's that, you ask? Check out their pitch:

Your Icebreaker garments can be worn solo or layered with other Icebreaker pure merino pieces to create a fine, breathable system that moves effortlessly between the mountains and the city, or wherever your travels lead you

We’ve translated this miracle all-weather fibre into a clothing system that gives people the same freedom to push their limits in the outdoors.

Icebreaker merino forms a buffer zone around your body, keeping you at an ideal temperature in all climates and conditions. It’s also lightweight, odour- resistant and soft against the skin – all qualities that will help you to perform at your peak.

These clothes are seriously addictive. My cousin John, an avid adventure racer, has worn Icebeaker over mountains and through deserts around the world. Julia, my wife, finds it stands up to the rigours of teaching primary public school.

In my world, I have come to love this shirt because:

- It is the optimal non-colour for a modern Creative pro: black
- It never fades (I bought it last March)
- No ironing
- Feels great
- Looks sharp

Yesterday, however, I gave my Icebreaker polo its harshest workout yet. Sure, they've been to the top of Everest and back, but can one of these merino miracle shirts stand up to a 12-hour TV shoot at an 80-year-old steel mill? Let's see.


Agency Call, 5:30 a.m. at the Mariott in downtown Montreal. Out of the bag and fresh as a daisy, as always. (The shirt was ready to go as well...)

BTW, the moustache is a temporary feature for Movember. Hit my donation page at http://ca.movember.com/mospace/348858 to find out more.


6:30 a.m., Les Forges Sorel. We get our security briefing, and get our safety gear. My black shirt, jeans and boots pass the test for toughness and fire/melt resistance. Plus, it looks cool with the orange flameproof coats.


First shoot was an exterior. Beautiful day, but it was about -10 degrees. Everyone around me was freaking out about the cold, but the combo of a windproof shell and a wool base layer was pretty effective. They all thought I was crazy, but only my bare hands got really cold.


By mid-morning, we were ready to shoot inside, near the actual forge. White-hot metal and sparks all around us. But once again, I was quite comfy in my breathable base.

Here is our Director, Jacques, and some of the team having lunch. They feed you non-stop at a shoot, and by the end of the day everyone is wearing coffee and grease stains. But you'd never know with the black Icebreaker polo. Black wool hides many, many sins.


I wish my eyes, ears, nose and throat were as rugged as this shirt. The smoke and dust of the ancient industrial site have been harder on my lungs than Don Draper pitching American Tobacco. (*hack, hack, hack*) The shirt didn't show the slightest bit of soot.


This steel mill began life as an arms factory in WWII, making barrels for heavy artillery. By mid-afternoon, we were shooting in the millwright shop, where some of the machines seemed to be original equipment.

They sure don't make 'em like they used to... except for this shirt. After 8 months of weekly wear, it still looks like new. But if I ever do get sick of it, Icebreaker recommends burying it in the garden - merino wool is both renewable and biodegradable.


All shoots have unexpected stresses, and this one was no exception. At this point, we were all tired, and the actors were having a hard time nailing the scene. But in cases like this, you can't let 'em see you sweat, and I was as cool and dry as bactrian camel in the Icebreaker.



Just an idea of the environment I was working in. Evening shift at the blast furnaces, and the shirt is still bringing it. I wish I was made of merino.


11 p.m., back in Montreal. About 3 pints into the day one wrap party. Note my glassy eyes, haggard appearance, and absolutely immaculate shirt. I could have slept in this sucker, but I needed to rid myself of the smell of burning steel.

Hell, I could've just kept rocking the black Icebreaker for the entire week. But there's no need. I also have this shirt in brown and blue.