Transit media

Transit media is a form of out-of-home advertising that uses vehicular platforms to establish a mobile brand presence.^[1]

Typically, transit media campaigns are employed in denser urban environments to maximize brand exposure to both pedestrian and on-road traffic. The medium has traditionally been limited to featured advertisements on buses and trams, but in recent years has extended to various sub-categories, such as dedicated car, van or truck advertising.

Recently advertising on the exterior of buses has pushed conventional boundaries of static media with the introduction of LED Displays. This allows the site owner to generate higher revenue as they can rotate ads and also schedule ads by GPS Location allowing advertisers to target their audience more effectively. The first of these bus displays made by a UK based company called Litelogic^[2] where introduced into London on buses owned by CBS Outdoor. More recently Titan has taken the plunge introducing them to New York and Chicago.

The most commonly used passenger vehicle in transit media fleets is the smart car made by Mercedes Benz. Other popular vehicle models used are the Mini (iconically used by the Red Bull energy drink company) and the VW Beetle.

The medium offers a balance between the visual impact of traditional billboards and the flexibility of smaller, more mobile signage.^[3] For example, an individually branded car might be casually driven around a city for the majority of the time, but can just as quickly be integrated into a multi-vehicle convoy or parked arrangement.

In addition to offering a high degree of visibility, transit media often supports promotional activities. Campaigns commonly involve some degree of interactivity, either through sampling or the distribution of promotional materials.

Innovations

Given the urban-centric focus of transit media campaigns and thus transit media fleets, it is not surprising that car sharing organisations (CSO), which primarily operate in high-density urban areas, are increasingly offering advertising on their fleets. While still a fledgling practice, particularly amongst smaller CSOs, larger operators such as Canada's Autoshare and the UK's City Car Club will be branding parts of their fleets. Depending on the popularity of the car share service, advertisers benefit through (i) increased exposure, as car share vehicles, in order to be viable, must be driven for multiple hours per day; (ii) increased density in a given location, a critical success factor for CSOs and (ii) exposure to more drivers per car than a privately owned car.^[4]

References