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‘Dear City Canada’ campaign to display tweets on billboards

'Dear City Canada' project will display tweets about cities on digital billboards across Canada. Supplied, Pattison OneStop

EDMONTON – If you can sum up your feelings about your city in less than 140 characters, a national campaign will post your message on mall screens and billboards across Canada this summer as art.

Spacing Magazine’s Dear City Canada project asks people to share what they love (or loathe) about the place they call home on Twitter using the @DearCityCanada handle, followed by Dear [their city].

All acceptable letters are being displayed on mall screens across Canada for two weeks in June, reaching an estimated five million people each week.

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Then, some of the best tweets will be displayed on outdoor digital billboards across the country throughout June, July and August.

Cities that are participating in the billboard project are: Vancouver, Surrey, Abbotsford, Pitt Meadows, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Kitchener, Hamilton, Toronto, Peterborough, Kingston, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Moncton, and Halifax.

Spacing Media Publisher and Creative Director Matthew Blackett says since we usually hear people complain about the cities in which they live, the company wanted to encourage people to share the positive characteristics about their cities.

However, Blackett says negative comments – or critiques – are also welcome.

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He says, with the exception of profanity and hate speech, the project wants to censor comments as little as possible.

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Blackett explains billboard ads are typically one-sided; they are messages aimed at consumers. Spacing Media wanted to turn that concept upside-down, and provide a platform for a conversation to take place.

Pattison OneStop is the partner that will show the tweets on the outdoor billboards in the nineteen cities.

The deadline for submissions is June 15.

“Dear City Canada” project. Supplied, Pattison OneStop

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