Advertisements or public art intervention?
I was in Toronto last weekend visiting my sister and mom. It was tons of fun and delicious meals, as you can see in my recent Flickr pics. We also did some homestyle cooking - and it’s my observation that, after trial and error, Dreena Burton’s Creamy Leek and Potato bake is the best thing to make for my family. Everyone loves it!
Anyway, as we made our way around the city on the subway, Ashley pointed out several advertisements she had noticed that seemed curious. I found them absolutely fascinating!
Hee hee - “Thanks, Obay!” As soon as I began to pay attention to these advertisements (my eyes normally gloss over advertisements of all kinds), I became more and more interested in how they seem to disrupt and subvert many paradigms. First of all they are designed in a traditionally glossy, promotional style to the point that you would barely notice them as being out of the ordinary unless you read the text and really think about what it says. Since to me these advertisements struck me as a form of interventionist public art, I wondered how an artist or group of artists could afford the cost of putting these works in such overt public spaces. The advertisements, as mysterious as they are, manage to disrupt the contemporary ease many people seem to have in taking pharmaceutical drugs. They also deal with the issues of blindly accepting advertisements that you see around you every day. In their use of the term “Obay” or obey, they challenge the viewer to think for themselves.
Surprisingly, I found out that the advertisements (which have apparently made their way into Ottawa buses as well) are for Ontario Colleges! Apparently on some advertisements they slapped this yellow sign up on them to explain the “joke.”
CNews writes, “Colleges Ontario announced yesterday Obay isn’t a product, but a marketing campaign to get parents’ attention. Research has shown parents favour university over college for their children three to one, said Howard Rundle, president of Fanshawe College.” So the ads are intended to encourage parents of children to allow their children to make their own decisions for post-secondary education, since they tend to pressure them to attend university. Bizarre way to promote college, if you ask me. And despite the fact that it was done as a form of advertisement, to me this campaign still functions as art.
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