I've addressed the marketing of public transportation, but this is slightly different. The ads that fill the London Underground and UTA's bus system and just about every other mass transit system -- do they work?
I still remember a number of the ads I saw on subways in Korea. One about a bald man who found a miracle hair tonic, in particular, struck me because the first time I saw it I misunderstood the Korean text. I thought it said that the woman got a new husband. Months later I saw it again and realized the subject and object articles were different than I had first thought. It just meant that her husband had changed. (Which is still a little ambiguous in English, huh?)
Anyway, the deal with ads on public transit is that you'll see that ad for maybe half an hour. You can't stare at the people across the aisle from you. You probably don't have a good view out the window. So you're going to read every word on that ad. I remember reading even the small text with copyright information on ads.
Video ads are probably the real future of advertising on public transportation, though. Some cities are experimenting with that. National Geographic had a piece about the flat-panel TVs bus drivers are installing across the world.
If they made it cool enough, maybe they could even make public transit more cool.
Maybe.
