Subway tunnel advertising

Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 by Rex Hammock

Subway tunnel advertising: Apparently, they’ve been around several years, but earlier tonight, I saw a “subway tunnel ad” for the first time. I was on the DC Metro Red Line between Metro Center and Judiciary Plaza, glancing blankly out the window into darkness when suddenly a 15 second Lexus ad appear in the void. As I wasn’t expecting it — I’d never even heard of the medium — it was a surreal and (speaking entirely as a media and technology geek) one rather slick gimmick. I looked around, eager to say to someone: “Geez, did you see that?” No one else in the car seemed to even notice, however. Jaded city-folk. According to the Metro’s website, the ads are handled by a company called Submedia LLC. Here’s a Quicktime video of a Dasani ad that will give you an idea of what it’s like to look out a subway window and see a video ad appear. After I see it a second or third time, I’ll probably be describing it as wall spam — but for now, I’ll let the novelty and gee-wiz factor impress me.

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About Rex Hammock

Founder/ceo of Hammock Inc., the content marketing and custom media services company based in Nashville, Tenn.
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  • lcreekmo

    It’s like a massively grownup version of those little cartoons you used to draw, you know, one stick figure on each page of a book, each moving slightly so that as you thumbed the pages, you created a “movie”? Awesome.

  • jeff

    These ads are pretty new to Metro, and not very common in the system yet. In fact, as a regular rider, I’m hard-pressed to think of a time when I’ve seen one. However, like many Metro commuters, I usually have my nose in a book or magazine, or some other distraction, and thus am not looking out the windows. Moreover, there are times (rush hour, and after Nats games and other big events) when the trains are so crowded most people can’t even see out the window. All that makes me wonder just how effective such ads will be, beyond the novelty factor.

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