TTC's spontaneous connections ad campaign slammed as 'tone deaf'

Several Toronto women are voicing concerns about a new TTC ad campaign that encourages strangers to meet and form platonic or romantic connections while on transit. 

The ad campaign, titled Between Stations, features a series of video episodes posted to Instagram and YouTube that show two strangers getting to know each other on the TTC. The episodes are accompanied by posters that read: "They meet, they connect." 

Upon seeing the ads, dozens of women took to social media to express their discontent, leaving comments under the TTC's campaign videos on Instagram about the negative experiences they've had on the transit system such as being cat-called, sexually assaulted, or accosted.

Isidora Cortes-Monroy, 30, is among those who found the campaign to be disconnected from women's real experiences on the TTC.

"A lot of women live with this knowledge that at some point in the future you will be harassed on the TTC. The question is always when and how that's going to happen…You live with this fear and you live making these micro calculations, figuring out how to minimize your chances of getting harassed," she told CBC Toronto.

Throughout her four years of using the TTC, Cortes-Monroy says she has been yelled at, catcalled, and verbally abused when she refused to give a stranger her contact information. 

A post marketing the ad campaign on the TTC's website describes the transit system as a place for chance meetings and spontaneous connections. "Between Stations" is a way of "leaning into that," it says.

The TTC's head of marketing and customer experience, Nancy Ortenburg, said at a TTC board meeting this week the campaign was "received very well" and that it gained about 350,000 views.

TTC taking down posters as campaign ends

Josh Colle, the chief strategy and customer experience officer for the transit agency, said the TTC will be taking down the posters as the campaign is coming to a close. But questions remain about why the commission thought social connection should be their focus over issues like rider safety, delays or overcrowding. 

It wasn't only female passengers who felt that the posters missed the mark. 

Coun. Josh Matlow told CBC Toronto that he thought the campaign was "tone deaf" and didn't reflect how a lot of women feel using the TTC. 

"I hear from many women that the last thing they want when they're trying to get to work or school is for some random guy to come up and hit on them. It's the wrong message," he said. 

At the board meeting, Colle said the campaign was not meant to encourage strangers to approach others on the TTC. Rather, the video series was an attempt at connecting with a younger demographic, he said.

Cortes-Monroy says she recognizes that the campaign may be meant to tackle social isolation by encouraging kindness and platonic social interactions. But, she says, she doesn't believe the TTC is the agency to address that issue.   

Treena Orchard, an anthropologist and associate professor in the School of Health Studies at Western University, says the idea behind the campaign – to encourage in-person socialization – is a positive one, but that the execution is lacking. 

"I don't think that there was enough of a runway or kind of a context building in this campaign for us to sort of see what the motivations [behind the campaign] are…And so, I think that it just falls flat."