Hello Friends!

If you are celebrating- “happy holidays!”

If you are not, uh…- “happy days!”

Things are still busy for me, but I’ve managed to catch some free time, so I will use it to prepare some updates for the next few weeks (Just some stickers and smaller actions from New York) and tell you a story:

It is a mystery story!

Our tale begins in the blustery year of 1919. Our young nation of Canada was only fifty two years old, and had just come of age to the world and herself during the dark horrors and trials of the Great War. This year, Canada signed the Treaty of Versailles and looked to her future. In the belle province of Quebec, in the city of a hundred steeples, two things were born: Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, a baby boy who would grow to greatly shape that future, and Albert-Louis Van Houtte’s grocery store, less important to Canada’s future, but more important to our story.

Van Houtte was an immigrant from France, and his grocery store specialized in imports. He roasted and sold coffee, and this part of his business eventually expanded into a large coffee & coffee-supply distribution company, focusing on restaurants and businesses, but also operating several cafes- mostly in Montreal.

It is at one of these Montreal cafes that our mystery is staged. A few days ago, I strolled into it, looking for a warm cup of coffee, and a hot internet connection. My scammy hotel wanted 12 dollars a day for wifi, but the Van Houtte at 272 Rue Ste Catherine wanted only half that for a cup of brown, a breakfast bagel thing, and as much inter as I could net.

I was greeted in French, served in English, and surprised in two languages (“Zut Ah My!” I cried.) to see huge images of Canada’s most notorious guerrilla street advertising campaign used in the décor.

The mystery is: “Why?”

Putting on my junior detective hat- here’s what I think happened: The “Sons of Houtte” hired some designer to throw together a “street-wise, coffee-infused collage.” Maybe “Something with an old-world feel, crossed with modern urban sensibilities.” Dude went around Montreal taking pics of graffiti and textures and torn posters and the like, threw them into Photoshop, typed some coffee-gibberish, fiddled with the fonts, changed some opacities, and next thing you know there is an ad in the ointment.

you see, I think that the same time our nameless designer was out collecting photos, our own Mr. Dan Bergeron was out about town installing commissioned illegal advertising for Vespa. What many people in Toronto don’t realize is that Mr. Bergeron was paid to go to several Canadian cities (or someone was anyway)- we were not the only ones so privileged to see the Vespa heads hit our walls. For those unfamiliar with the whole ugly incident, here is some info from Media In Canada:
The images will be affixed, like wallpaper, at eye level on buildings around Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. There are four different Vespa-heads in total; they’ll appear either as singles or more intimidating “gangs.”

“[They're unbranded] to create curiosity and intrigue,” says Glen Hunt, creative catalyst at Toronto-based Dentsu Canada, who adds that the images were done by Toronto-based guerrilla artist Faux Reel. “The idea is to bring something attractive to the locations – it’s more like art, so people appreciate it.” Hunt describes Faux Reel as “the Banksy of Canada,” referring to the renowned British graffiti artist. Street teams will be handing out Vespa-head buttons, too, to further leverage the concept.”

So these were illegal ads masquerading as illegal art, and the masquerade worked well enough to land these images in a coffee shop, before the big reveal and backlash.

Now, more mysteries: Will Van Houtte ever realize what happened? Will the designer? Will the images be removed or covered? Will Glen Hunt, the “Creative Catalyst” (creativity is always catalyzing all over the man, ruining his suit jackets) and the other media types at Dentsu Canada wet themselves at how wonderfully leveraged their goddamn concept was, or might they attempt legal action against the Van Houtte at 272 Ste Catherine?

Merry Christmas, Problem Sleuths!