Transit Advertising
by
Charles Lamson
When Campbell soup started advertising in 1910, the company spent its first $5,000 placing ads on one-third of the buses in New York for one year. The ads were so successful that after only six months, Campbell enlarged the contract to include all surface vehicles in the city. People started trying more Campbell's and soon sales were up 100 percent. For the next 12 years, transit advertising was the only medium Campbell employed. Today, Campbell is still a major user of transit advertising.
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Transit advertising is a category of out-of-home media that includes bus and taxicab advertising as well as posters on transit shelters, terminals, and subways. Although transit is not considered a major medium by most advertising practitioners, standardization, better research, more statistical data, and measured circulation have made transit advertising more attractive to national advertisers. National marketers of design apparel and movies, for example, are two of the many categories of advertisers spending dramatically more in this medium, replacing the traditional transit advertising leaders such as petroleum products, financial services, and proprietary medicines.
Transit advertising is a cost-effective way for marketers to reach a large audience of people. Buses and taxis provide high ad exposure by traversing the busiest streets of a city many times a day. A recent 1-800-Flowers.com campaign promoting the company's specialty bouquets featured ads on buses, on subway stations, and in other urban locations. The company's sales were seven times higher in markets where the outdoor campaign ran.
Transit advertising is equally popular with local advertisers. Retailers can expand their reach inexpensively and often recieve co-op support from national marketers, which thrive on the local exposure.
Types of Transit Advertising
Transit advertising targets the millions of people who use commercial transportation (buses, subways, elevated trains, commuter trains, trolleys, and airlines), plus pedestrians and car passengers, with a variety of formats: transit shelters; station, platform, and terminal posters on buses; and taxi exteriors. 
Transit Shelters
In cities with mass-transit systems, advertisers can buy space on bus shelters and on the backs of bus-stop seats. Transit shelter advertising is a relatively new out-of-home form enjoying great success. It reaches virtually everyone who is outdoors: auto passengers, pedestrians, bud riders, motorcyclists, bicyclists, and more. It is extremely inexpensive and available in many communities that restrict billboard advertising in business or residential areas. In fact, shelter advertising is sometimes the only form of outdoor advertising permitted.It is also an excellent complement to outdoor posters and bulletins, enabling total market coverage in a comprehensive outdoor program.
Terminal Posters
In many bus, subway, and commuter train stations, space is sold for one-, two-, and three-sheet terminal posters. Major train and airline terminals offer such special advertising forms as floor displays, island showcases, illuminated cards, dioramas (3-D scenes), and clocks with special lighting and moving messages.
In Paris, Nike made a splash at the French Open tennis tournament even though a competitor had locked up advertising rights within the stadium. Nike covered the city by buying space on some 2,500 buses during the tournament. As the coup de grace, it bought up every bit of signage space at the Porte d'Auteuil metro (subway) station close to the stadium and turned it into a Nike gallery of terminal posters featuring famous tennis players from around the world.
Exhibit 1
Inside card ad.
Inside and Outside Cards and Posters
The inside card (see Exhibit 1) is placed in a wall rack above the vehicle windows. Cost-conscious advertisers print both sides of the card so it can be reversed to change the message, saving on paper and shipping charges. Inside car-end posters (in bulkhead positions) are usually larger than inside cards, but sizes vary. The end and side positions carry premium rates.
Outside posters are printed on high grade cardboard and often varnished for weather resistance. The most widely used outside posters are on the side, rear, and front of a bus.
Advertisers may also buy space on taxicab exteriors, generally for periods of 30 days, to display internally illuminated, two-sided posters positioned on the roofs. Some advertising also appears on the doors or rear of taxicabs. In some major areas, sponsors can buy cards mounted on the tops of cabs that travel throughout Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties, serving major airports and traveling the busiest freeways in the country. Costing from $110 to $130 per month per cab, this is a very cost-effective way to reach the mobile public.
The Los Angeles-based company Adfleet has even started selling advertising space on taxi hubcaps, which are fitted with a special disc that allows the advertisement to remain stationary as the wheels turn. Adfleet, whose clients include Taco Bell, TNT, and Virgin Cola, charges $150 to $200 per cab for a four-week cycle.
Buying Transit Advertising
The unit of purchase is a showing, also known as a run or service. A full showing (or No. 100 showing) means that one card will appear in each vehicle in the system. Space may also be purchased as a half (No. 50) or quarter (No. 25) showing. Rates are usually quoted for 30-day showings, with discounts for 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month contracts. Advertisers supply the cards at their own expense, but the transit company can help with design and production. 
Cost depends on the length and saturation of the showing and the size of the space. Rates vary extensively, depending primarily on the size of the transit system. Advertisers get rates for specific markets from local transit companies.
Special Inside Buys
In some cities, advertisers gain complete domination by buying the basic bus---all the inside space on a group of buses. For an extra charge, pads of business reply cards or coupons (called take-ones) can be affixed to interior ads for passengers to request more detailed information, send in application blanks, or receive some other benefit.
Special Outside Buys
Some transit companies offer bus-o-rama signs, jumbo, full-color transparencies blacklighted by florescent tubes and running the length of the bus. A bus has two bus-o-rama positions, one on each side. A single advertiser may also buy a total-bus---all the exterior space, including the front, rear, sides and top. 
Exhibit 2
New York subway brand train.
For years, New York subways have been running brand trains (see Exhibit 2), which include all the subway cars in a particular corridor. However, with the July 2004 opening of its monorail system, the city of Las Vegas has taken the concept further. The glitz of the city's strip extends to its public transportation: Each of the nine monorail trains and seven stations have a corporate sponsor. The monorail is entirely funded by passenger fares instead of tax dollars, to generate at least $6.5 million annually in advertising revenue. Consider the deal the city struck with Nextel, estimated at $50 million. The company signed for a 12-year sponsorship of one train and the system's "crown jewel," the main station at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Nextel even payed construction costs for the station, which is adjacent to the company's largest retail venture yet, the full-service, interactive Nextel Pavilion and Theater. Sprint, General Motors, and Monster energy drink have also signed train and station sponsorship deals. 
Figure 2
Las Vegas monorail.
*SOURCE: CONTEMPORARY ADVERTISING 11TH ED., 2008, WILLIAM F. ARENS, MICHnice to meet you too
AEL F. WEIGOLD, CHRISTIAN ARENS, PGS. 591-595*
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