Why Islam Planning Bus Ad Campaign

The group WhyIslam.org appears to be preparing an advertising campaign on DC area buses.
We got word of this via @whyislamdc who tweeted the following:
WhyIslam DC's bus ads for the DC-Metro transportation system are coming soon. Prepare to be wowed insha Allah!
According to the Islamic Circle of North America, a grass roots organization which "seeks to obtain the pleasure of Allah through working for the establishment of Islam in all spheres of life," [a] contract has been signed with CBS Outdoors (they handle Metro's advertising) to have 'WhyIslam' posters on "50 buses for 4 weeks. These posters will include basic message of Islam and invitation to viewers to call dawah hot line 1-877-WHYISLAM."
Money for the campaign, about $35,000, the Web site said, was raised during a recent DC area fundraiser.
Metro doesn't know if this is true or not and deferred questions to CBS Outdoors, which said only that they can't talk about upcoming campaigns.
Why Islam ran a similar campaign ran in New York last year, causing quite a stir. (GREAT headline) Another campaign ran in the San Fran area. More here about the NYC ads.
What do you think of this? No big deal? Hey, Metro could use the money. Free speech above all else? Is Metro out of their minds?

More on religious advertising on buses. Who knew it was the way to go?

Cool? New Ad in Farragut West

Trekkies rejoice! Not only are you getting a new movie, but if you use Farragut West station, you get to see a nifty preview.
According to Metro, a high tech form of advertising has debuted in the passageway of the station inside the 18th Street entrance.
Customers walking through the passageway will see a 15-second ad for the upcoming “Star Trek” movie projected on the wall (video available at link). To get a better idea of what the ad will look like check out the demos on www.monstermedia.net.
The ad for the movie will be displayed through the end of April, Metro said.
At this time, Farragut West is the only station with the equipment to display the digital projection advertisements. However, the projector is able to display multiple ads, according to Metro.
The new form of advertising at Farragut West is expected to generate revenue of $84,000 to $168,000 a year, Metro said.
Have you seen it? What do you think?

Why So Many Old Ads?

Several people have asked why there are so many old advertisements or empty advertising space on Metro. Thanks to Jared for digging into this.

Q: This ad was in car number 6080 on my way back from National Airport yesterday after picking up some tickets. It's almost April. metro claims to have a $29 million budget gap. But we have ads in the Metro cars from December....fully five months old. Why is Metro failing to maximize ad revenue?

A: It is important to note that Metro receives a guaranteed level of revenue from its advertising contract with a third-party advertising broker, and these revenues are significant. The broker itself chooses whether and how to seek ads to fill the available space as part of its normal operating decisions. Metro is guaranteed the revenue from the contract whether the broker sells 100 percent of the ad space in the Metro system or zero percent.

Sometimes, as in the current economic recession, market demand for advertising space declines, and customers may notice unused advertising space in rail cars and Metrobuses.

Ron Rydstrom
Director
Office of Marketing

Mass Transit Roundup

Amazingly, Metro has not had a derailment today, so there's time to visit a couple of other topics.

WTOP, gotta love 'em, is reporting "the idea of light rail or rapid bus service from Alexandria to Tysons Corner along Route 7 is gaining steam." If you've ever been unlucky enough to drive along Route 7 over that stretch, you know it's a hellish drive. We used to live off Columbia Pike, which is one of the more densely serviced bus corridors in metro DC, and we see how many are wary of adding more lumbering buses to crowded lanes. Plus, it seems there's a bus stop every 50 feet or so. We've seen some pretty crazy stunts pulled in order to avoid getting trapped behind a bus.

Do you think buses, as run by Metro and other local transit systems, help congestion or worsen it?

The Washington Post has a feature on Antwoin Delph, the guy who puts up those 3M Scotchcal film adverts you see in Metro sometimes. In the article, Delph seems busy, so we wonder why there are still ads on the trains talking about "the holidays." Maybe they meant Nowruz.

We'd like to give a shout out to Whiteboard "Comics" for the mention. Love the cartoon.

Greater Greater Washington has a potentially useful map overlaying the new circulator bus routes over the Metro map.

Photo: Cojon8