Remember how, just the other day, we were speculating on the next form of desperate advertising? We predicted that, what with all the full frontal nudity in American Apparel ads, the only thing left for marketing people to try was blatant hardcore sex.
While we were only half-serious, we couldn't have realized how close we were to the truth. For the very next day, a story broke about an ad agency using actual prostitutes in a campaign...
It appears to be a legitimate activist attempt to start a discussion about legalizing prostitution, right? Actually, it's yet another not-so-guerilla stunt by a ratings-starved radio station without anything else to offer. (You can see the logo for Toronto's CFRB 1010 in the bottom right corner of the signs.)
In an interview with local media, the Bad Date Coalition of Toronto, which advocates for sex workers, attacked the ad and its producers:
“It’s to give that radio station attention. It has nothing to do
with helping out the sex worker … It’s using them,” she said. “If we
wanted to have an actual discussion … have the sex workers come in and
have it in a place where it’s safe and where people can call in and
respectfully ask questions.”
She said having the women display a sign on the street “sets them up” to be targeted by police and predators.
While we don't disagree with her on the radio station bit, it's a bit silly to say the signs set them up to be targeted by police-- after all, they were already standing there, working as prostitutes, being targets for police, when the ad agency waltzed by and asked if they wanted to earn an hour's wage without doing anything illegal, which can't be a bad thing.
Via Toronto's National Post.
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