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News & ArtsThursday, March 4, 2010
Money In Favor of Ads on Public Transit
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 1:31 PM
Last November, Clear Channel Outdoor was awarded a contract from Sound Transit to manage all revenue-generating advertising for the agency. This likely explains the absence of ads in the first few months of service of Link. Even after November, there’s a dearth of advertising on Link.
Please allow me to LiveJournal for a moment: I am generally anti-advertisement in public spaces. One time, someone yelled at me because I took a sloppily pasted-up ad for a Budweiser energy drink off of an attractive, old-fashioned wrought-iron phone booth in Pioneer Square. "At least it's a nice thing to look at!" he shouted, adding, "At least it's not fucking graffiti or something!" I did not—and still do not—regret pulling the ugly thing from off of the pretty thing.
That said, I am very pro-ads on trains and at transit stations. I love taking the train in New York or Boston or San Francisco, where ever-changing ads for movies fill the background with some color. I even like those weirdly non-descriptive fashion ads, with pretty, greasy people staring off into the distance, with a logo I don't recognize off-centered at the bottom of the ad. They're transitional background images, swapped out biweekly or once a month, and they suggest a cultural conversation that isn't necessarily an important one, but the conversation passes the time while you're waiting to go home.
I think Sound Transit has done an awful job of commercializing Link. There should be coffee carts and (yes) newsstands all around these light-rail stations, and garish signs should be trying to sell us stuff. It's part of urban life, and it's a sign of a healthy transit system. Times are tough, sure, but someone isn't doing their job if they're not selling ads in spaces that are seen by thousands of captive eyes every day.
1
Ads in public places contribute hugely to urbanism. When you're walking around in public, you're in a commercial space. Ads tell us what other people are interested in. Real cities have ads not just on and in their buses, but on phone booths and special kiosks throughout the commercial areas. I was just in San Francisco, and they have large round ad kiosks EVERYWHERE, just like they do in London, Paris, and New York.
Businesses should be encouraged to put up bigger, better, and more numerous signs, too. It's a city, not a goddamn park.
Businesses should be encouraged to put up bigger, better, and more numerous signs, too. It's a city, not a goddamn park.
4
Ads in an underground subway definitely captivate more than those on the surface. Our ad-riddled mental nether regions are strangely at peace gazing at ads in the bowels of the city.
5
How about the ads in the Washington DC Metro for the F-22 and Boeing Tankers and other stuff we can't buy?
6
Does anyone know why our transit (subway and above ground) stations aren't commercially robust areas like most other mass transit system I've been on around the world? I don't mean around the station...I mean inside. Some of the more active stations even have full blown 7Eleven-esque places, which is really convenient.
7
yup the Scandie ikea influence is deep, it favors antiseptic bland spaces, nothing screaming, nothing foodish, no food on street, etc.
in nyc they have oyster bar in train station too.
we didn't need public art for $300,000 a pop. we needed posters advertising movies and bands and shit.
in nyc they have oyster bar in train station too.
we didn't need public art for $300,000 a pop. we needed posters advertising movies and bands and shit.
8
Paul? What?
You want ads? But not ads? You want special ads? Or regular ads but only in special places? Never mind. I don't want to know.
You want ads? But not ads? You want special ads? Or regular ads but only in special places? Never mind. I don't want to know.
9
Fnarf clearly thinks that, if you're not in Times Square (or maybe Tokyo) with ads in every conceivable direction, you're not in a "real city." Frankly, I find that garish and obnoxious, and if that's what it means to be in a "real city," I'm happy I'm not in one.
I don't have any problem with ads on public transit, though.
I don't have any problem with ads on public transit, though.
10
I actually like how every other month or so one advertiser will entirely take over my BART station and blanket the place with floor, wall, and stair ads. It's not always inspired, but it's always colorful, it's something to look at, and generates a few bucks.
11
@2, yes, it is -- despite the best efforts of the bluenoses and scolds who have run it for the last hundred years.
12
@9, everything's black or white with you, isn't it? It's either Times Square or sign-free Redmond, nothing in between. This is the argument that's been used to sanitize and dull our city for a century -- if you allow any ad anywhere in public you've committed "Times Square". That's patently ridiculous.
.
.
13
I don't mind most of the ads. I do hate the odious buswrap - even with the view stripe (like the new bright green ones with the Clear ads).
14
This topic reminds me of the scene in "Brazil" where Sam and Jill are driving down the highway and there's nothing but a solid wall of advertisement billboards on both sides of the road.
16
@6,
At the San Francisco Caltrain stop, the beverage/snack/newspaper kiosk was selling liquor. It blew me away.
At the San Francisco Caltrain stop, the beverage/snack/newspaper kiosk was selling liquor. It blew me away.
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@15 - True: I have a wealthy Mexican friend who won't ride buses because he thinks people will assume he's a day laborer.
Oddly, that stigma doesn't extend to streetcars and trains. Go figure.
Oddly, that stigma doesn't extend to streetcars and trains. Go figure.
18
@6: You need enough riders to support it. One hopes the day will come, but we're not close yet.
That said, I'm not sure how easy I want to make it for people to bring fast-food containers and drinks on the trains. They could become high-speed trash cans pretty quick. That's one of the reasons the Washington D.C Metro is so clean.
That said, I'm not sure how easy I want to make it for people to bring fast-food containers and drinks on the trains. They could become high-speed trash cans pretty quick. That's one of the reasons the Washington D.C Metro is so clean.
19
If companies are aloud to legally invade the public sphere with bullshit advertisements then I'm legally obliged to cover them up with graffiti.
20
What about Sao Paulo's experiment with banning ALL outdoor advertising, the 2007 Clean City Law? Popular with the residents, not so much with Clear Channel. https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/73/Sa…
21
Some things to note. First, ST has a policy of not putting up ads or wrapping vehicles right at the beginning of a new service, as a means of establishing the brand. This makes sense to me, and it might be why the ads are slow to ramp up. Also, you know, the economy might be biting into some of advertising purchasing power of local businesses.
Secondly, the City of Seattle has an outdoor advertising ban. It's the reason why those automatic toilets cost us an arm and a leg: every other city in the world just contracts with an ad company; the ad company does all the dirty work like buying and maintaining the toilets, and both parties make money from the advertising revenue. Since the ban precluded that option here, the City bought and maintained the things itself, which was a miserable failure.
And San Francisco recently got brand new bus shelters bought and maintained by Clear Channel in exchange for the right to advertise on the side of them. Up here? Metro's pulling out shelters wherever there's not high enough ridership because they can't afford to maintain them.
People need to start complaining to the city about the outdoor advertising ban. Other cities have managed to allow advertising on bus shelters, ad kiosks, and automatic toilets without magically being covered in millions of billboards. The City Council should rewrite Seattle's law to be more like the law in those cities. Yes, there will be more ads. But maybe our bus fares won't go up $0.50 every year.
Secondly, the City of Seattle has an outdoor advertising ban. It's the reason why those automatic toilets cost us an arm and a leg: every other city in the world just contracts with an ad company; the ad company does all the dirty work like buying and maintaining the toilets, and both parties make money from the advertising revenue. Since the ban precluded that option here, the City bought and maintained the things itself, which was a miserable failure.
And San Francisco recently got brand new bus shelters bought and maintained by Clear Channel in exchange for the right to advertise on the side of them. Up here? Metro's pulling out shelters wherever there's not high enough ridership because they can't afford to maintain them.
People need to start complaining to the city about the outdoor advertising ban. Other cities have managed to allow advertising on bus shelters, ad kiosks, and automatic toilets without magically being covered in millions of billboards. The City Council should rewrite Seattle's law to be more like the law in those cities. Yes, there will be more ads. But maybe our bus fares won't go up $0.50 every year.
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