Paying for Naming the T

[Commuting Boston Student]

I am happy to see advertising revenue maximized in any other way, as long as it doesn't involve renaming stations and lines. Advertising on the T could be helpful to local businesses that are near T stations.

Based on South Station, I think we're pretty damn close to peak advertising, so I'm comfortable making assumptions about the ceiling on advertising revenue being somewhere barely north of double what we're pulling in right now.

If "maximized ad revenue" means multiplying ad revenues by a factor of ten, I'd be singing a different tune but it doesn't, and it can't. I'm seeing absolutely no path forward that gets us from where we are right now (ads being worth roughly 32 cents per every ten riders) to where we would need to be for advertising to be anything but an egregious insult to the public (ads being worth roughly 32 cents per every single rider.)

The road to a "profitable" mass transit agency has never been and never will be through advertising. It's through real estate, which is where the MBTA and the state should be focusing its efforts if the goal is truly to have an agency which needs the smallest subsidy possible. (Whether or not that's an appropriate goal is a topic for another thread.)

Advertising money has always been at best a distraction from talking about the real solutions. It's only become an insult fairly recently - with nonsense like the sale of naming rights.

 

[whighlander]

Based on South Station, I think we're pretty damn close to peak advertising, so I'm comfortable making assumptions about the ceiling on advertising revenue being somewhere barely north of double what we're pulling in right now.

If "maximized ad revenue" means multiplying ad revenues by a factor of ten, I'd be singing a different tune but it doesn't, and it can't. I'm seeing absolutely no path forward that gets us from where we are right now (ads being worth roughly 32 cents per every ten riders) to where we would need to be for advertising to be anything but an egregious insult to the public (ads being worth roughly 32 cents per every single rider.)

The road to a "profitable" mass transit agency has never been and never will be through advertising. It's through real estate, which is where the MBTA and the state should be focusing its efforts if the goal is truly to have an agency which needs the smallest subsidy possible. (Whether or not that's an appropriate goal is a topic for another thread.)

Advertising money has always been at best a distraction from talking about the real solutions. It's only become an insult fairly recently - with nonsense like the sale of naming rights.

Commute --that was then -- the Now might be a new mobile smart phone ap that is premiering in Chicago -- it will connect transit commuters with very local places where you might want to stop to pick-up something, etc. -- the ap will monitor your position in real-time and select a group of local merchants based on your interests and what is currently being featured

The key is to couple this kind of ap to the T so that for every personalized ad the T gets something and if the customer actually makes a purchase the T gets a piece of the action

According to the story which I heard on WBZ radio this PM -- they plan to be test in Chicago and then be in Boston next summer

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Commute --that was then -- the Now might be a new mobile smart phone ap

Great! "Opt-in" advertising. I love it - I can shut my phone off, or just not download the app, and happily go about my daily commute free of "targeted," "personalized," "location-aware" advertising.

Marketing agencies probably love it a whole lot less because a lot of people think like me (at least on this particular point), and so a whole lot of people are not going to opt-in. Whoops, there goes a huge chunk of market share.

But, hey, by all means, go for it! As long as efforts are being focused on ads that only reach people who want to see them, it means efforts are not being focused on continuing the ad offensive against people in South Station or Harvard or Park or State. It's probably too much to hope for to roll back the ad offensive, but at least it won't get any worse.

 

[The EGE]

I see Student beat me to the punch. The MBTA selling advertising is essentially a gimmick to garner political support - it tells politicians "Hey, we're doing everything we possibly can." It does not, and cannot, fundamentally alter the reality that the MBTA is chronically underfunded, that sales tax revenue has not increased as was expected in 2000, or that politically popular service expansions like South Coast Rail (or even worthwhile-to-essential projects like the Green Line extension) will increase the costs of providing service.

 

[omaja]

^ That's obviously not the point of selling naming rights... the only thing that it does is guarantee the MBTA a fixed level of revenue over the life of the contract. Something that isn't subject to the seasonality of ad demand in the transit out of home arena.