Targets of vandalism
Sports banner project put on hold
AN UNEXPECTED SETBACK for Sports Services’ promotional poster campaign ocurred the week of Sept. 14–18, when two banners currently positioned on Morisset terrace, directly across from the Unicentre cafeteria, were vandalized. The identity of the individuals who defaced the posters is unknown, but due to their actions, the advertising campaign has been temporarily suspended.
Five promotional posters are positioned along Morisset terrace, three which feature athletes representing varsity teams, and two which promote active living on campus. The banners are part of Sports Services’ promotional poster campaign, which began last year. Other murals are located at Montpetit Hall and the Sports Complex.
“We’ve recently put banners all over campus and [the project] has been given a lot of feedback—some positive, and some not so much, based on different things,” said Dan Valin, marketing and sponsorship coordinator with Sports Services.
Valin spearheaded the poster project last year, which was still in progress—with plans for future banner placements—until acts of sabotage two weeks ago have forced its halt.
“I’m assuming [the individuals responsible] are students, but there’s no camera or way to know how,” said Valin. “The messages put on the banners, in the vandalisms, do tend to support a certain movement that the students have been calling for.”
According to Valin, whoever was responsible for the act stuck a piece of paper onto the poster using industrial glue. The paper had a word written on it, meant to replace the word on the poster it covered. Instead of “the game starts here,” the new message was “the debt starts here.” The same act was committed on the French statement of a poster advertising active living, twisting that message as well.
“Whether it’s a push against tuition or something else, it is difficult to say what the exact message they’re trying to get across is,” said Valin.
The acts of vandalism have raised questions concerning promotional activities at the university.
“Should we continue branding exercises on campus if the students continue to vandalize? Can [the banners] be respected enough on campus?” asked Valin. “It took a lot of work and planning to get this exercise going.”
He thought it was unfortunate for sports to get tangled up in the messaging.
“Debt and sport don’t really correlate, so I don’t think the target was sport. The act was about using a message that already exists and twisting it to have a new message come across. It’s unfortunate, whether it’s correlated to sports or not, because its defaming a sports banner. It affects sport in the sense that our message is blocked from getting across.”
The cost to clean the posters was approximately $1,000.
“Now I have to cancel other projects or scale them down,” Valin said.
An ironic element of the incident is that student tuition fees pay a significant portion of Sports Services’ budget, including the financing for this project. “[The student] vandalized something he or she paid for, and she or he paid for the cleaning, and he or she will pay for the removal,” said Valin.
For the time being, the project has been halted, pending a re-evaluation.
