IMAGINE THIS: A COMMERCIAL JINGLE PLAYS every time you pick up the cereal box during breakfast. On  the way to work, the roads, the buildings and even the air are all bombarded by advertising. Could this all be part of a science fiction film or a typical Canadian morning in five years time?

Outdoor advertising has experienced such a phenomenal growth that some downtown cores resemble the not-so-far-fetched city blocks out of the film Blade Runner. At the sides of major highways, in washrooms and even permanently etched into skin, advertisers and their agencies are on a constant lookout for innovative, and sometimes shocking, ways to get their message to you.

“The ad agencies keep fighting against each other, making more and more and larger and larger ads,” Dave Meslin of the Toronto Public Space Committee says. “But no one is buying.”

TPSC has worked for the past two years to help preserve what they call public space, defined as any outdoor area such as a park, street or sidewalk that does not discriminate towards those ventures that make money.

“It’s about democratizing public space," Meslin says. "Right now it isn’t what it should be. It only serves private interests.”

In every city and town across Canada, municipal governments issue bylaws to help protect the public space from an overabundance of outdoor advertising. Nevertheless, the apparent increase of billboards in major cities and small towns begs the question: does this legislation work? Mary Falbo, president of the Canadian Outdoor Measurement Bureau, claims that no one in their membership breaks any laws with their billboards.

“Each company in our membership works with municipalities across the country,” Falbo explains. “They can’t put up the sign without approval. They don’t do anything outside of the law.”

Although Toronto has one of the strongest billboard bylaws in Canada, Falbo agrees there has been an aggressive growth in outdoor advertising in this area over the past five years. Whereby the Outdoor Marketing Association attributes the growth to more people being outside due to the advent of mobile phones and computers, the Toronto Public Space Committee believes it is due to an exploitation of the bylaws in exchange for money.

If an advertiser or business owner wants to place an ad or put up a sign that doesn’t comply with the city’s bylaws, they must apply for a variance. The City of Toronto’s Dave McCallum, who reviews thes  petitions, says he recommends about 80 to 100 variance applications a year to the community council, who then debate the petition during a public city meeting.

The TPSC believes this process of variance application and debate caters only to the corporate community, because the government cannot afford to anger local businesses or lose money generated from advertising agencies.

“If you look through the record of campaign funds, they are full of outdoor advertisers,” Meslin says.

As well, he alleges that the advertising companies hire people to attend the meetings that are held at hours when most people can’t go.

“Not only does the public not employ lobbyists, they don’t even know these processes are happening,” says Meslin.

Sid Catalon of Pattison Outdoor Advertising, one of the largest billboard companies in Canada, applies for bylaw variances.

“I will put in an application for the variance and I will make the local Ward Councilor aware of it,” Catalano says. “That could be viewed as lobbying but some councilors are protective about their area and have questions they want answered before the meeting.”

Catalon agrees that the public should be involved with the variance process and said most advertiser  accommodate to the needs of the community.

Can a community, however, say: “No more billboards?” In Vermont, ad-free public space is a reality. This US state imposed a bylaw that bans outdoor advertising on main highways, a rule that some people outside of Toronto may soon emulate.

Just a half-hour outside of Toronto, the city of Oakville recently conducted a referendum on outdoor advertising where, Meslin says, almost 85 per cent voted against billboards.

“We’re very interested in this Oakville study,” says Bob Rheaume of the Association of Canadian Advertisers. “We’ll get involved at the Supreme Court if it comes to it. A ban on outdoor billboard advertising is a ban on corporate free speech.”

If the Oakville referendum passes, advertisers may look to other means to attract consumers. Already, outdoor advertisers expand their reach by avoiding the bylaws altogether for more innovativ  ways to spread their messages.

In early 2002, Dunlop Tire held a namechanging contest, where by the person who agreed to change their last name from Dunlop to Dunlop-Tire could win $25,000.

“Why should football stadiums and hockey arenas be the only ones to make a few extra bucks,” Sam Fry, of Dunlop Tires, says in a press release.

According to an Environics poll, 42 per cent of Canadians believe that changing one’s name to adopt corporate brands will become a new form of corporate marketing and 37 per cent would adopt a corporate brand name if paid well to do so.

Already, some people show their brand loyalty to the Apple Macintosh or Nike by getting a permanent tattoo of the company logo — without compensation.

“These people aren’t unaware they are turning themselves into corporate billboards,” says Dr. John Hannigan, professor of Sociology at University of Toronto. “But I think most people in the younger generation are inoculated to advertising.”

An immunity to advertising has forced agencies to go into areas that were once considered sacred from billboards or corporate promotions.

“It’s an invasion of privacy,” says Dr. Hannigan. “Even in washrooms, there’s advertising. I don’t think it will turn us into more veracious consumers. The more advertising there is, the more we’re bombarded and the more people will turn it off.”

Montreal’s Zoom Media was one of the first advertising agencies to approach restaurants with the idea of selling their washroom walls for advertisements. In seven years, the campaign has grown from a few ads in Canadian bars to an international list of washroom stalls, gyms, medical facilities and university campuses.

“We are a good target for the adbuster movement — the people who are anticorporate and anti-advertising,” says Claude Breault, communication director of Zoom Media. “People can have this point of view but what we’re doing is perfectly legal.”

Breault says Zoom has only received about three or four calls to complain about the ads in washrooms since they began this campaign.

“When we started, people would say there was too much advertising and we were the target of this type of comment," Breault says, "but it’s really just a matter of supply and demand.”

Does an increase in advertising and company exposure really improve the sales and demand of a product? Most advertising agencies were reluctant to answer this question directly, claiming brand recognition and product awareness play as much of a role as do sales.

“In general, outdoor is one of the best ways to gain fast awareness,”Mary Falbo says. The TPSC and Dr. Hannigan believe the abundance of advertisements in the public and private space is due to competitiveness, not necessarily because of the promise of higherrevenues. Meslin hopes more people see this growth of advertising as the same way the TPSC does and will want to do something about it.

“I think visual pollution will soon be as important as air pollution.”

Lianne is a freelancer with Flare and splits her time between London, England and Toronto.