After receiving a provincial grant that was to be used towards marketing the magazine, Toronto-based Urbanology this week launched a ‘Spot That Ad’ promotion for its first campaign, ‘Content That Matters.’ Throughout July, the mag, which feautres urban trends, fashion and music, is running an ad in Toronto’s TTC subways, inviting commuters to take a picture of it and upload the pic to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or Flickr in order to receive a free one-year subscription.

‘We chose that medium because a lot of our readership uses the TTC every single day,’ Craigg Slowly, public relations, Urbanology magazine, tells Mic. ‘It will build awareness, build our subscriber base, and hopefully generate enough buzz.’

The campaign, which in part celebrates the mag’s fifth year in print, features celebrity actor and hip-hop veteran Ice Cube and rising Canadian star Drake. It was developed by the independent quarterly, youth-skewing magazine’s staff. Urbanology has a print run of 30,000 across the country, and is available on newsstands. A full-page ad costs $2,000, according to their media kit. Its advertisers include Molson, Nike and Telus.

The social media aspect leverages the brand’s involvement in the online space, says Slowly. ‘It’s very important, especially for independent up-and-coming publishers like ourselves, to use social media and reach a wide span of people for the cost of your cable bill or your wireless bill,’ he says.