Lucrative MTA Deals Will Target Commuters With High-Tech Ads

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The Metropolitan Transit Authority is expected to vote to approve two advertising deals today that together will bring in $900 million over 10 years.

The advertising deals, the largest in MTA history, give the winning bidders control over advertising space on MTA and Long Island buses, as well as in Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road train cars, stations, and billboards.

Titan Outdoor Holding, whose share of the advertising pie is $822 million, plans to introduce what it calls “creative corporate sponsorship” — including more high-tech methods for delivering advertising messages — to station platforms next year.

The standard two-sheet — an industry term for a paper billboard advertisement — will be accompanied by advertising that incorporates new media, according to the director of marketing at Titan Outdoor Holding, Eric Joseph.

Digital displays on Long Island Rail Road platforms, used now to announce how many minutes remain until a train’s expected arrival, will likely also have corporate-sponsored news, weather, and sports headlines running across the tickers.

Corporate sponsorship will not include selling naming rights to stations, according to Mr. Joseph, who said the company would seek sponsorship in more subtle ways. For example, Titan may partner with an energy company that would heat a station platform where its logo was displayed. “You have to be creative,” Mr. Joseph said. Titan is considering presenting such a plan to the MTA for approval next year, he said.

The other licensee, Van Wagner Transportation Advertising, will manage advertising on billboards at railroad and bus stations.

The MTA’s advertising sales have increased exponentially in recent years, the agency’s head of real estate and advertising departments, Roco Krsulic, said. “Now national advertisers want to be in the subways,” he said. “The system’s changed, and we’ve changed the branding.”

The “brand car,” in which an entire subway car is wallpapered by one advertiser, was introduced about five years ago, and now brings in between $50,000 and $80,000 a car, an MTA spokeswoman said.

Large brands such as HSBC and Bud Light have yet to drive out small, independent, local businesses altogether. Some subway cars cater specifically to smaller advertisers, such as the dermatologist Dr. Zizmor, whose face has become well known among commuters over the years.

While Titan and Van Wagner will be responsible for choosing advertisers, they will have to abide by MTA ground rules, which prohibit images with pornographic content, as well as tobacco advertisements.


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