More advertising?

[SchuminWeb]

I'm surprised, with the whole discussion related to the recent fare increase, that no one proposed more advertisements.  When I was up in Boston in May, most of the MBTA stations I went to had their trackside walls lined with advertisements.  Example, at Quincy Adams:



I'm surprised that this never came up with the discussions of WMATA's budget woes.  From what I can tell, Metro could stand to raise a lot more revenue by putting advertisements up on the station walls, replacing the current name plaques with advertising holders (and redesigning the name plaque to fit in an ad-sized box every four or five ads or so.

Additionally, I'm surprised that New York Avenue, Morgan Boulevard, and Largo don't have any advertising.  One would think that this would be a good source of revenue as well.  I consider every day that WMATA does not adopt something like this to be a day that WMATA is losing money.

[Tritransit Area]

Advertising on the outer walls of the underground stations wouldn't go over well IMO, but i'm somewhat surprised that more Metrorail cars haven't been wrapped (at least a significant portion of the cars have side ads, anyway).   Interior wraps could be cool as well.  More advertising kiosks could be great on the stations.

[79MetroExtraMD]

Advertising on the outer walls of the underground stations wouldn't go over well IMO, but i'm somewhat surprised that more Metrorail cars haven't been wrapped (at least a significant portion of the cars have side ads, anyway).   Interior wraps could be cool as well.  More advertising kiosks could be great on the stations.

Yea. I haven't seen any wrapped cars lately. I guess alot of the advert firms are trying to cut back themselves. Those two SubMedia screens in the Red Line tunnels have been dark for months.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

No one wants to pay the rate for the wrapped cars in this economy.  WMATA wants to increase advertising opportunities and sell more advertising space, but in this economy, there aren't many buyers. 

From a railfan perspective, I've always liked the relative lack of advertising and such on WMATA.  For practical purposes, they need to do whatever they can (within reason) to get money.

[Scrabbleship]

No one wants to pay the rate for the wrapped cars in this economy.  WMATA wants to increase advertising opportunities and sell more advertising space, but in this economy, there aren't many buyers. 

Wouldn't the easier solution be to lower the rate for wrapped cars to find buyers? I know I'd rather charge less and get money than charge more and get no money. Desperate times do call for desperate measures.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Wrapping a car has costs for WMATA too, I assume, and I'm sure they don't come cheap.  Depending on contract terms, the car is going to have to get moved from line to line, and I also don't know how expensive it is to applyl the wrap, remove it, and do other maintenance while it is applie dto teh train.  If wrapping the train becomes a losing proposition for WMATA, then it probably isn't worthwhile.