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A fleet of cars wrapped with ads is ready to hit the streets, hawking brand names on roads, superstore lots and driveways across Toronto.
But their drivers aren't trying to sell you anything; they just want to get where they're going as cheaply as possible.
The vehicles belong to Toronto's latest player in the auto-sharing industry, CityFlitz Advertising Inc., which launched this week. CityFlitz sells advertising on its fleet of Mini Coopers and Smart Cars, then rents out the "mobile billboards" for a dollar a day, said CEO and president Andreas Kotal.
"You get the car for a buck a day, and the cars are wrapped with cool advertising," Mr. Kotal said.
The company has signed on three advertisers, including Yahoo Canada, and will rent out 10 of its 17 cars.
Car-sharing has enjoyed a relatively smooth ride in Toronto, propped up by rising gas prices and growing environmental awareness, said Kevin McLaughin, president of AutoShare. His company, which has 200 cars, about 8,000 members and 120 locations across Toronto, has boosted its numbers each year since it began a decade ago.
AutoShare is talking with a U.S. company interested in wrapping some of the cars, but Mr. McLaughlin said he's in no hurry to take the plunge.
"People have all different kinds of relationships with advertising and branding that exists in our society," he said.
"People have to be comfortable with it."
A spokeswoman for rival Zipcar, a U.S.-based business with 300 vehicles at more than 130 pods in its Toronto branch, said the company has no plans to festoon cars with ads.
"That's mobile advertising and we're a car-sharing service. I think they're two very different industries," Kristina Kennedy said.
Cutting costs by selling ads might come with a few pitfalls when you add an uncontrollable variable: a driver, said University of Toronto marketing professor David Dunne. Pair an obnoxious driver with a branded car, and a vicious sideswipe will be linked with that logo, he said.
"You have no idea how people are going to behave as they're carrying your brand around," Dr. Dunne noted.
Companies of all type are welcome to apply for space on the CityFlitz cars, said Mr. Kotal, as long as the ads are legal and don't "offend" the company's image - a notion that gives pause to musician Jake Oelrichs, 30.
"For me, it would depend on who was advertising," said Mr. Oelrichs, who said he'd have to support the brand he was inadvertently promoting.
"You're indirectly contributing to whatever the company is advertising," said Mr. Oelrichs, checking out one of the CityFlitz cars parked in the Harbourfront Centre parking lot.
Getting around the moral quandary is simple: don't like the advertiser? Don't drive the car, Mr. Dunne said.
CityFlitz customers pay a one-time, refundable $350 security deposit, $30 processing fee and $7 monthly fees, then get the cars - which are available 24/7 to members with access to lock boxes on CityFlitz parking sites across the city - for a loonie a day. Drivers have to travel at least 30 kilometres on each trip.
Rebecca O'Keefe, who sold her car when she moved to Toronto, didn't like the look of the ad-wrapped car she saw in the Harbourfront Centre lot, but she said the price is right for weekend trips out of town.
"If it gets me from point A to B for a dollar a day, I would totally drive it."
