"Running Longer" TTC Advertisement

Concept: 2 out of 5
Execution: 1 out of 5
Yeah, but: If it was creative, it would stand out too much.

The Long Version: The ad headline reads: "TTC buses and streetcars are running longer than before. We're staying up later for you."

Nobody has ever used longer in that context before. The vehicles are the same size; there's no wholesale fleet replacement with articulated buses and ALRV's. The right word to describe something that happens at a time that's past the time when it used to happen is later.

But the Toronto Transit Commission can't say that it's service is running later than before. People might laugh.

And so the TTC misses another chance to be hip, edgy, funny, self-depreciating, clever, memorable, and interesting. Coupled with their uninspiring text, they've gone with the ever-popular clock image to illustrate the idea of Time. After all, it's hard to have banal without the cliché.

'It could have been—a bird out of season, dropping bright-feathered on my shoulder... I was prepared. But it's this, is it? No enigma, no dignity, nothing classical, portentous, only this.'