Tube Advertising is hard to avoid. When you are taking a trip via the underground, do you ever find yourself staring at the multiple West End show posters displayed on your journey up or down? Or when you get down to the platform, do you recall seeing curved posters on the tunnel walls?
TMH Media offers OOH (Out of Home) Advertising as a service and although this type of media may seem old school – now that everyone is glued to their phones on social media – it actually has major benefits for reaching your audience. For example, when you go down to the tube, the signal is lost from your phone. Although some phone companies offer WiFi for the underground, 9 times out of 10, it is completely unreliable and by the time anything has loaded you have made it to your stop anyway. Today, outdoor media is more than just a large poster, there are now many different types of outdoor formats available that take into consideration your budget and needs. The underground has digital screens placed throughout, therefore a brand can now have videos playing as well as displaying posters.
There is a lot to consider with all the different types of outdoor media that can be advertised throughout the underground network.
Let us walk you through the options:
• 4 sheet posters – positioned in high footfall areas as a type of public noticeboard for tube users to see
• 6 sheet posters – this is a more premium poster and will deliver a bigger broadcast of your product or service
• 12 sheet posters – this is a landscape walkway display which can be seen throughout the underground corridors within high footfall areas
• 16 sheet posters – placed on the platform while you wait for your tube, more information can be displayed here as people have more time to read the poster
• 48 sheet billboards – also placed on the platform, these are hard to miss with the sheer scale of the advert
• LEPs (Stair, lift and escalator panels) – although these are small adverts, they are the first and last advertising that consumers see when they enter and exit the tube station and make a big impact
• TCPs (Tube car panels) – these are seen for the longest time by tube users and can create a dialogue to connect with commuters
• Backlighting – backlights on 6 sheets improves visibility throughout the night and extends the exposure of your ad
• Bluetooth 6 sheets – There may be a call to action on the advert that requires a consumer to download information, which is done by built-in Bluetooth technology
Depending on the station, some of these panels may be digital so that video can be shown on them.
With up to 150,000 commuters entering the Tube network every hour, this makes the London Underground one of the busiest transport networks in the world. Therefore, tube advertising is perfect to show your brand off. 60% of people who commute via the tube will notice when new advertising appears in the underground because they see these on a daily basis. London tube advertising has a knock-on affect to online. 41% of travellers will search for a brand or similar product a week after they have viewed an advertisement on one journey.
There are high engagement zones throughout the tube stations as to where commuters will see your ads:
• Corridors – Based on 5 minutes walking through these a day, 46% of passersby engage with ads.
• Escalators – Based on 3 minutes spent on escalators in the stations, 49% of the time users are engaging with ads.
• Carriage – Based on spending up to 35 minutes a day inside a tube carriage, it was noted that 27% of passengers are engaged with ads inside the tube carriage.
• Platform – Based on spending up to 5 minutes a day waiting on a platform, it was noted that if the ads are visible, 44% of tube users are engaged with them.
These adverts reach a wide variety of people, whether that be Londoners, International and UK tourists or shoppers and commuters. Consumers indicated that they prefer London Underground advertising over other methods, with 65% of tube users feeling as though tube advertising is not as invasive as other types of marketing i.e. social media. Advertising on the tube can help drive awareness, increase footfall to your store or website and make people consider your brand where they may not have thought about this before.
London tube advertising is actually one of the most cost-effective ways of promoting your products or services. You are reaching a similar mass audience than you would if you were to do television advertising, except outdoor media is a lot cheaper than TV.
This type of advertising is desirable to any brand as it is proven to reach a young urban audience. 1 in 5 users are ABC1 Londoners between the ages of 15-34 with a higher income, which is great for businesses as they know this audience has money to spend.
Although COVID-19 has had an impact on the number of people travelling via tube, there are still thousands of people who need to commute. This is also their only means of transport to get to work as most people in London do not have their own vehicle to get from A to B.
So, why not advertise on the tube so that your brand can be seen by millions of people a day? For further information about how you can get your brand involved with tube advertising, feel free to contact TMH Media today on 01206 241014 or email us at hello@tmhoutdoor.co.uk.
TMH Media is a specialist marketing and media agency, helping to build important communities by connecting people. We look forward to speaking to you and helping your brand to get the exposure it deserves!