A Tunnel Becomes a Video Wall for San Francisco Train Commuters
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 2:54 PM
This morning, commuters going into downtown San Francisco toward the East Bay looked out the window and instead of seeing a dark tunnel wall, they saw a 15-second mini-movie advertisement.
San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) launched today its one-month test of so-called motion picture advertising that uses old technology and applies it in a high-tech way.
A series of high-tech posters are mounted on the tunnel's wall. They are timed to light up after the train operator passes so they won't distract him. The effect of the animation only occurs when the train is going at least 25 miles per hour, said Linton Johnson, chief spokesperson at BART. It's the same concept as the flip books you may have had as a kid. Flip it quickly, and the drawings in the book look as if they are moving as in an animated film.
SideTrack Technologies, Inc. and CBS Outdoor have teamed up to install the posters. San Francisco is not the first city to do this - Boston and New York have this already - but BART is the largest train system to use this technology as a way to pump in more revenue. Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City and London also have mini-movie ads on the walls of their train tunnels.
"We're trying to hold ticket prices down, and it's another way to offset costs. The other option is to go back to our riders and get more money," said Johnson. "Every time we've done a new advertising campaign, the riders have reacted positively, as long as that campaign isn't shoving it down their throat. This is taking an otherwise boring train ride and adding a little liveliness to it for 15 seconds. It's pretty unobtrusive. There's no audio."
A blogger in San Francisco whose blog is devoted to BART musings says she doesn't mind watching an ad if it keeps ticket price down. Target is the first advertiser.
SideTrack installed Europe's first tunnel/video wall in London, with Microsoft as its advertising partner. Heathrow Express, the non-stop service between Heathrow Airport and London Paddington, installed a "video wall" to show 15-second Microsoft ads during the 15-minute train ride.
BART says it expects the tunnel ads to generate at least $120,000 a year. If BART installs another mini-movie advertising wall in a second location, the agency could get more than $1 million a year.