Exotic Massage Ads in the Toronto Sun



In the basement of the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor streets there are many metal cabinets. Inside them are all the old issues of the Toronto Sun on microfiche. The library has many other newspapers from across Canada and around the world but do not have Now Magazine or Eye Weekly. You can do plenty of research down there. Just help yourself to the rolls of fiche from the cabinets. Each roll covers roughly one month of newspapers.

By viewing one newspaper from each year, the changes appear drastic. In 1995 there were no exotic massage parlour advertizments in the classsified section. Then in 1997, there were 300 every day.

In the late 1990s, the Sun had many ads for strip clubs and lingerie studios. Apparantly a girl working in a plaza dressed in a skimpy pajamas would a perform a dance for a fee. There were also a massive number of phone sex services.

The Toronto Sun has always insisted on having the company name appear in the ads. Each spa would have to be a registered business and they would have to show their paperwork to the Sun. By 1999, they required that all the massage ads list their adress as well. By printing this information, greater responsibility is encouraged.

Once the Sun allowed the massage ads in the late 1990s, they became immeadiately popular. The income generated each day was enormous, probably about 15,000 per day. About 40% of ads were for massage parlours in the commercial regions of Vaughan. These spas saw themselves in an intense competition and chose to use larger non-text ads with graphics. These spas also tended to have luxurious and tropical names. It wasn't until 2000 that massage parlours tended to operate under bland and meaninglist names like "Studio 5","International". Although it seems like forever, Alphacare and Blue Lagoon were not initially big advertizers in the Sun. It wasn't until 1999 that they started bombarding the public with glossy ads.

Gradually, the bigger spas in 905 scaled down their advertizing campaigns in the Sun. Most of the Brampton spas stopped having big ads and by 2002 most of the Vaughan spas were gone. In 2003, Steeles Royal and Hands from Heaven were both quite established. They most focussed on online advertizing.

Since 2003, massage parlour advertizing in the Toronto area has been rather constant. The Sun has about 40% of the revenue. Now has about $40% and Eye about 20%. Every year there are 20 new websites but most are poorly maintained and eventually dissappear. The sun has put the ads online but the interface isn't very user friendly.

The dramatic trends emerged in 2005 effecting the lower end of the market. Craigslist started becoming popular. Then Now and Eye Magazines became flooded with $60 Chinese incall ads.

To see the future you must first look into the past. Looking into the past brings an obvious conclusion: Don't expect much change in the Toronto Sun Ads over the next few decades


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