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Animated Ads in a Subway Near You
prostoalex writes "A company called Sub Media claims a successful launch of motion-picture ads in New York subway. The ad agency, created by a PhD in Astrophysics, prints ads on Kodak transparencies, so that when the train speeds up, the resulting images create a full-blown motion picture. The first ever ad of this was run for Target in NY, and there is another one planned for Discovery Channel."
As long as they aren't pop up ads...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Well, at least its kinda cool
...as if we aren't inundated by enough of this already....
Will they charge for the in-transit movies?
The train which takes you from Narita (the Tokyo airport) into Tokyo has displays like this. Yahoo used to have an ad that would display for a few minutes. It's pretty cool.
I personally hate ads. We are bombarded with them on tv, on the internet, and in the real world. With ads in subways, this has gone too far... I suppose I will have to drive my suv to the local market now instead of taking the subway.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Here's a fairly recent article about this from the Boston Globe
(Google cache link, since the original story is now archived)
If I only had a way to choose 'Block Images from this Server' when riding the train..
....which replaced the Target ad. On the PATH train from New Jersey running between 14th and 23rd Street Stations in Manhattan, left side of tunnel.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
I thought for a second they were talking about the restaurant Subway... And to think my 200-pound weigh loss diet was in jeopardy! I'd hate to see animated ads with the big old flabby Jarrod and the new, skinnier one...
How does this sell a product more effectively than any other medium? Sounds more like a cutesy way for an ad agency to bill out more hours and pat itself on the back while marveling at its own creativity.
IIRC this technology was first proposed in the book _Time_Eenough_for_Love_ by Fred Saberhagen. Does anyone remember when that came out?
-C
The T? The Metro? Don't make me laugh.
In fact, the ad wasn't even on the NYC subway system -- it was on the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) trains, which is run by the Port Authority of New York and NJ. The subway is run by the MTA.
Minority Report comment.
.
OMG.... Dare we say it? Subway flip-book p0rn?
spiffy real media demo from forbes at:h tml
http://www.forbes.com/2002/08/15/0815subway.
I live in chile and this has been coming proving for 2 years ago.
This seesm to me to be a rather extravagant way to achieve a simple goal. Why not just install TVs / LCDs in the cars that show ads? Of course the transportation authority would have to approve it (and lock it down.. i'd imagine and LCD panel in a subway could be very tempting...). But hey... they have animated ads in movie theaters, which are basically big LCD panels... as far as i can tell..
;)
Of course you'd have to put one in every car or so.. which would be alot more expensive than mounting it once in a tunnel. I'd hope that people look out the right window, because if they don't they might watch the animation going backwards.... unless its designed so that it works in both directions
You crazy man? You piss off supahfly!
This will be very confusing for the New York subway graffiti culture.
In the comic a little child is saying
"I'm a consumer whore!"
with a man behind him replying
"And how!"
Seriously though, we're americans. buy buy buy! consumerism! built in obselecense! liscensing! money money.. blablacorporateamericanyadayda
- tristan
Wow, it's like the ads in Minority Report! Look at me! I'm clever! I made a really obvious connection to a very recent and very mediocre movie! I've finally got into the groove of Slashdot!
They've got 'em in Philly already--either on the Broad Street subway line, or the PATCO PA/NJ speed line. The one I saw was for Dasani water, and was pretty cool. It reminded me of the toys that would come in Cracker-Jack boxes where at one angle you'd have one picture, at another, another picture.
-Kris
No need to stare at ads, just count the piercings on the punk guy sitting across from you. Or perhaps you'd rather listen to the annoying girls talk about stupid stuff and roll their eyes at the celing (and the punk guy sitting across from you).
Better yet, fishbowl the car and watch the people stare at the moving ads. And miss their stops. And laugh cuz it looks like the guy is picking his nose if you close your eyes halfway through the animation...
Gotta love new forms of entertainment. Lets just hope they don't start integrating sound into them.
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
Wasting a perfectly good Phd in Astrophysics on marketing.It's an interesting idea, but seriously, people -don't- like advertising!
It's why televisions have a mute button, why radios have a mute button, why anti-advertising software is so prevalent...
Interesting concept, to be sure, but what makes a Scientist turn -that- bad? He should be designing city-busting robots, freakish monsters, hell he's an astrophysicist, he should be desiging black holes...
Damned marketing.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
The article headline didn't go as far with it as they could have.
"And the words of the PROFITS are written on the subway walls..."
-l
... have you broke the news to them?
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
Is it just me or is this a stupid idea? Almost no one who rides the subway is actively looking out the windows at the subway walls. Hell, many of the subway seats actually face away from the walls, towards the inside of the car. That picture at the top of the ABCNews.com article is priceless: all those images are flickering by behind the commuters! Yeah, they can look out the opposite window, but what incentive is there for people to do that? It's not like TV where there's something interesting to watch and then a commerical pop up. There's nothing interesting on the subway walls so who's going to be looking there? Everyone either zones out or brings something to read on the subway.
Advertisers must be getting desperate...
GMD
watch this
Submedia has these set up on MARTA.
m l
b er _11_2001.htm
http://www.signweb.com/outdoor/cont/subwayad.ht
http://www.areteis.com/press/pressreleases/Octo
I haven't seen the ads yet, but I usually don't go that far north (Dunwoody/Sandy Springs). I might take a trip up that way soon to see what they look like.
Phila/South Jersey has had this for about a year now. PATCO, the subway between Philly and Lindenwold, NJ started putting these in their underground tunnels in both Philly and Camden. I havent seen one, as I typically drive, but there was a news article about it on tv that described it.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
that way the people standing waiting on the train can see it as it pulls in, and as it pulls out (if the train is too croweded for the to get on).
okay, okay, not as cool.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Why didn't I pursue it? Because I find marketing to be a job roughly on par with being a pimp or a drug dealer.
So when do the "culture jammers" think up something clever to cover over these ads with? Maybe movies of starving poverty-striken children captured on Kodak film? Or the sweatshops where much of our clothing is made for department stores like Target?
I for one, wouldn't mind seeing the reaction on people's faces when they view these harsh realities.
The ads they're discussing here are very short. They'd be useful for 'brand recognition'. That's all 20-30 seconds of ads, at an 'uneven' frame rate, with no sound, will give you.
Those of you picturing the Guiness ad from Minority Report are going to be very disappointed. On the upside, at least they're not scanning your retina!
some hood is gonna figure out how to tag these things with porn images and give full length porn movies to subway riders.
"Yeah Joe....we just arrested another bum for pleasuring himself on the subway. We really need to get the public works dept. down there to clean the spray paint off those ads."
Honesty may be the best policy, but apparently by elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
I'm sure of the author. Title error then?
ads in subways are a sweetspot in the ad industry - think about it, you've got people captivated for minutes at a time with nothing to look at (books, mags, music aside)except the ads on the walls. The industry took this to a new level a few years ago by selling ad space by the half car (which makes sense - if you're sitting you can't see what's behind you) so you'll get an entire car-length of nike, microsoft or dewars. This is just an explosion of that.
Keep in mind also, that this was demoed on the PATH line between New York and New Jersey which, until recently, was relatively ad-free. It changed a year or so ago with the installation of closed-circuit TV monitors that show powerpoint-style ads and subway information (next train in x mintues, etc.) The article says that the PATH lost 50 million last year despite raising fares by 50%. They're desperate for cash.
Personally, i'll deal with the ads if I still get to get to jersey for a buck and change. It's a helluva lot cheaper than the commuter busses, that's for sure.
Triv
Is this really new? A Marta station here in Atlanta has had an ad like this for Dasani water since Jan. 2001, I though it was cool the first 3 times I saw it, now it's just annoying.
-G.
Start selling helmets with blast shields? Heh I wonder what Valenti would say to that? "People who impair their vision to avoid ads are stealing."
I have seen this ad on the path train from Jersey city to, oh I don't know, 33rd st? Anyway, I was just sitting there and all of a sudden I look up, and see this full motion Target advertisement through the window above the guy across from me's head. It was pretty surreal the first time. Now me and my friends know exactly when to look up. It is worth a gander. Seems hard to install, in an in-use subway. And most people don't look out the windows in the tunnels. But the existence of the ad has spread by word of mouth. Seems like good money for the MTA, and the ads are relatively unobtrusive compared to the ones I get 5 minutes into surfing the web. Anyway...
until vandals get ahold of this... i'm sure there's some creative stuff that can be done with enough paint and patience...
I can't believe it's not lard!
I wanted to show you how it worked by creating an image that would animate as you used the down arrow to scroll down this discussion page but the crapfilter ate it.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
dupe of slashdot article
Still a good story though.
the ads are still there. i think they are going to
put more ads on the north line at peachtree center
station.
james
Welcome to my place...Now sit down and watch this mindless f$%ing ad for the next 3 weeks on your morning commute....
[Please type your sig here.]
These are currently running between 14th and 23rd on the PATH line into Manhattan. Its not too bad. The Target one was ok because no one had ever seen them before. The Discovery Cahannel one is pretty cool. A shark swims outside the cars and seems to be about half the size of the car. Its no worse than staring at a black wall.
But I can see a lot of boring ads in the future getting this technology. I can't wait until the RIAA buys ad space and tells me how I shouldn't down load MP3s on my walk to work.
Don't know whether they've used the same system, but they've already placed something like that in the Milan Subway.
In Milan it seemed to work: they placed the ads in such a place that most students from scientific and engineering faculties saw it, and I believe they succeeded in having people watching it.
It was quite fun to see lots of geeks and future engineers wondering over the system they used to achieve the effect (backlighted images, frontlighted images, somebody proposed even projected images, either from the ceiling or the train...)
Anyway, I believe that after a few months nobody pays them much attention, unless there is a new ad, probably also because the quality decreased with time.
I don't know what could happen in a "normal" environment, though
Billboards?
Radio?
Store logo's as you drive around?
There is NO escape. There is NO spoon. Just give your money to Nike, Sony, and Microsoft! Arg!
I do share your frustration.
I saw this in NY when I went to H2K2. I didn't know it was newsworthy though :).
I told my wife about it 'cause I think it spooked everybody on the train. Something about the way the adds "move" gives you really bad vertigo. You expect everything outside the Path to be dark and moving by at a good pace, instead you look out the window and see gay men and women dancing around red and white bullseyes wearing tight white bellbottoms and goofy smiles. It's like riding a train into the twilight zone.
But, I suppose it will sell a lot of addspace.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
will do with this, I personally would love to see some animated train graffiti...
I predict the first
" MAKE "
(blink)
" MONEY "
(blink)
" FAST "
ad will appear by the end of the year.
Trolling is a art,
It's great to know how they did it-- and now my friend doesn't have to worry about his mental health (though others would disagree :)
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Insert wisecrack about Minority Report here.
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
I saw ads like this 4 months ago in Japan.
I saw that last year...
Here in Buenos Aires!!
I guess you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out a new way to put ads where people will notice them. ... oh wait, I guess he is a rocket scientist... never mind then.
Ads have been on public transit for years. God knows how many time's I've been inundated with the annoying "Kick the Nick" guy that the BC Health Board has for anti-smoking commercials (Christ, that ad almost makes me want to start smoking).
This is just a revamp of an old advertising system. I personally think it's cool. At least it's not like the intrusive annoying "planted advertisers" that Sony is putting around city streets with their cameras posing as tourists.
Driving a car won't help that.
Personally, I enjoy a good book on transit, so I never really pay attention to transit ads anymore anyways. I can't do that if I'm driving a car...
Karma: Non-Heinous
On re-reading the article, I realize that it must have been the one between 14th and 23rd, not Christopher Street. Just a couple of stops further.
From Loreto, where they hung the ol'pig, to Piola, where the Politecnico is.
Was pretty cool, it showed a old guy in a jogging suit running as fast as the train, staring at the people inside it, and then running past with an expressionless face.
It was there when I got back from Norway, July 2001.
Dunno whether it is still there, as I moved to the other side of Italy.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
In the trains (trams, really) that connect Denver International Airport terminal to the concourses, there's kinetic art on the walls as well as "flipbook" style animated sculpture.
I suppose it's only a matter of time until United books ad space there, but it hasn't happened yet.
This could finally provide an answer to the "Where do you want to go today?" commercials.
Station 2
They used to do something similar in Berlin, Germany. No ads though they showed short movies. So it rather was an art thing then some commercial crap.
;-)
Well this is education paying off I guess
I can't help but think that we'll hit the point one day where there will just be no more space left. Now we have advertisements on the floor in shopping centers, in our subway tunnels, and in our school textbooks.
How long until we have ads in the travel lanes of our roadways? When companies send up satellites with a foil "banner" with an ad printed on it? Ad tattoos?
I would also argue that ads are like currency -- the more that exists, the less worth each one has.
I'm not opposed to ads in general, I just wonder when every bit of our consciousness will be required to avoid them. And do they do any good anyway?
but I would be happy to have something even mildly entertaining to fix my eyes on while riding the subway. If you've ever ridden a subway in a major city like New York, you know the first rule to safety is NEVER look another subway rider in the eyes. This just gives us something to look at. Fine with me.
Bullet trains provide 60fps action... due to advanced techniques from nvidia... well, actually not but am i right in thinking that the ads are outside of the train?
Well, I live in Italy, near Milano, and I've
been seeing this kind of ads in the tube for
some year... the 1st I remember was a runner
that looked like racing with the train (the
ad was for the "Adidas" shoes).
Maybe the technology was different, but the
effect was just the one described!
Ciao,
Massimiliano
They have some videos from news coverage and simulations at their website
Who cares about the PATH train? Let them try it on a real subway line. Then I'll have an opinion.
I am not sure if it was the same concept, but...
Way back in the 80's the same idea was used for a
short time in the subway-tunnels in Budapest, Hungary.
Too bad the idea did not catch up at that time...
Just my 2 cents.
what if train is going in reverse direction? would the viewer see the ad in reversed time sequence? if so, imagine a detergent ad, showing you putting a dirty laundary and getting clean clothes? or how about anti-wrinkle, anti-aging cosmetics ads?
I vaguely remember this being done on the Montreal Metro at the time of Expo 67. As the train reached its programmed speed strobe lights illuminated ads in boxes on the subway walls producing a rotoscoping or animation of the ads.
Does anyone else remember this ?
McHummer
Swatch did one years ago in a train
tunnel in Switzerland!!!!
pretty trippy shit indeed...:-)
remo
I remember seeing this is Tokyo earlier this summer. Pretty odd at first. There they were advertising beer I think :)
I guess a degree is pretty powerful, if it can start its own company....
Karma: T-rexcellent.
I saw one for Target on the PATH from Hoboken to NYC. It was really cool, and I despise advertising. It should be cool to do other things with it as well. The subways in NYC are so miserable anyway, we need something to quite the thoughts of suicide.
As for the incentive, of course there's the initial novelty, but it's also more interesting than reading the 'Injured? Call 1-800-BIG-MONEY!' ad that's by the subway car's interior roof, or the budweiser ad that's on the subway car's interior wall.
Personally, I like the ads, and if I don't want to see them, that's why God invented the concept of not looking.
I saw this ad a few weeks ago on the PATH train between either 14th and 23rd Streets or 23rd and 33rd Street. Cool (though who needs more ads in life?). The first time I saw it was early in the morning before I had my coffee, the image waivered somewhat and no one else on the crowded train seemed to notice it -- it took me a second or two before I was sure I hadn't half fallen asleep and was dreaming it.
::ad whips by, colors alternate, etc.::
HELLO! My name is EPILEPSY! Pleased to meet you!
How long until someone sues the FUCK out of Kodak and the NYC Transit Authority for inducing a seizure with this crap?
-/-
Mikey-San
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
I have to admit, it was very cool. BTW, people on both sides fo the train can see it because it gets reflected off the windows on the opposite side of the train.
Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta
http://www.sub-media.com
They've got a good set of sample movies and TV news coverage on their site (MPEG and Real Player formats).
I was skeptical (doesn't animation like this require a shutter of some sort?). The simulations are hokey, but the TV clips show in in action more or less.
They didn't mention about the subliminal coke ads in a couple of the frames.
Nothing like splicing pr0n on that puppy.
If you think the NYTA's subway system is so miserable as to induce suicidal tendencies, you really need to travel a bit further afield. Trying to use Boston's "T" system, for example, is a truly miserable experience. Makes me actually miss the NYC subways, if you can imagine that.
What percent of the PATH operating budget is $50 million? Is it like 1% or something significant? (Not that $50M isn't significant by itself).
Do you know what it would cost if fares alone covered the cost of operating the trains?
I heard a press conference the other day by our state's transportation department head talking about building a commuter rail line similar to the PATH trains and he made a comment that I found interesting, that few if any transportation projects ever deliver a return on investment (ie, economic value relative to their cost).
Would the PATH trains even be economically viable if fares paid for the operating costs? I mean, nobody wants to pay $50 each way to work.
some hood is gonna figure out how to tag these things with porn images and give full length porn movies to subway riders.
"Yeah Joe....we just arrested another bum for pleasuring himself on the subway. We really need to get the public works dept. down there to clean the spray paint off those ads."
And Joe, you can clean this mess here.
Pure 3vil.
And in other news Gator today unveiled their newest advertisement product
"We don't want to go into details about how it will work but I will say that customers who order our free Ray Ban sunglasses will be in the thousands and the impressions will be many"
While many are buzzing about being able to get Free Rayban glasses the NY Transit authority is quite upset.
"This is going to eat into our subway ad revenues. It's theft and we plan on pressing legal action"
In Japan, the Yamanote line has flat panel
displays on the trains, which show news, weather, and of course lots of ads.
I don't see the point of putting the displays on the tunnel walls, except for a "gee whiz" factor which quickly evaporates.
Not just on transparencies, but on Kodak transparencies . Is that a product placement right on the front of slashdot?
I remember in the early 80's there used to be an animated mural on the D line tunnel wall inbound to NYC right before the train crossed the Manhattan Bridge. They were set up on an abandoned station platform (Myrtle Ave?) and lit with small incandescent fixtures behind a slitted wallboard . They produced the same visual effect as a flip book or nickleodeon image. I think the animations were dancing figures in a Keith Haring style but it has been a long time since I saw it ....
Haven't read it - but a quick google search brought up the title Love Conquers All? That was the only one with love in it.
I find subway riding in NYC fun, but the other passengers are enough entertainment for my small-minded midwest mind.
Im living in Milan - Italy and I notice the same kind of animated ads appearing the subway line 2 (near "Loreto" station) and line 3 (near the "Duomo" station) since a few weeks ago.
Kinda funny to watch them. (the ones I saw were about adidas and nike if I remember correctly)
This seems very similar to the billboard discussion in Farenheight 451. "Cars" move so fast on the highways that they adverts needed to be stretched out for meters and meters.
...but we've had this in a subway station in Oslo for a while now.
:)
To be honest, you actually have to focus to see what's going on. I don't think i'll last long. Or maybe they'll redefine "prime time" to mean periods with long delays.
Been done here in Chicago. Alot of the L cars are fully painted ads for various landmarks (Zoo, etc).
Coke has them in the Atlanta subway. They've been up for about a year.
the Metro Atlanta Rapid (sic) Transit Authority has had a proptotype of this with a Dasani commercial between the Dunwoody and Sandy Springs station for more than a year now.
L
Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
When I first moved to NYC I saw an animated man running using this technique in a lit portion of the tunnel between stations. I don't remember where exactly. Perhaps it's still there?
I've tried NJ, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, London, Paris and Hong Kong. When any of them approach 1/8 the square mile 24/7 coverage of what we have in NYC, I'll consider referring to them as a subway system. But the PATH? Come on, the monorail in Disney World has more extensive coverage.
Some time ago i thought about making ripples into the tracks, thus letting the train vibrate and act like a huge speaker.
Perhaps someone catches the idea up and finally bring multimedia ads to our trains...
I went with a friend of mine to Tokyo for Y2K and on the way from Narita into Tokyo we saw an ad quite a bit like this in a train tunnel, for Yahoo Japan. I believe it was even LED-based, so they could reconfigure what ads people were looking at.
Wish I had a link or a picture or something.. but this is definitely not a new concept.
I think this will actually be quite successful though, if the ads don't get too obnoxious.. when I was in Japan that time, it was not only the first time I had seen something like that, but the first time I had ever thought of it. It really caught my attention. :)
Cryptic Allusion - New Mac and Dreamcast Games!
Now, I haven't seen any of those new fancy thingy's. But is it not a problem that the single images slides by instead of being presented as single images with a shutter blocking them until they are in the right place.
The only thing I can think of was those old wheels with a image inside where your would turn the wheel, but even those had(if I remember correctly) small cracks between the images so you viewed the images from outside the wheel and the the small holes made sure that you only saw it as a, mostly, still image.
So with the windows close by the wall and the images racing by will it not only be a blur?.
One could make a fancy device that would see when a window was at the right position to the image and then light it up with a strobe light or something.
my sig
I did this as an undergraduate film student. I spent $250 on it !
I also made one that worked while you were riding the PeopleMover between terminals at the Airport
It seemed way too simple and easy to copy, so I didn't really pursue it. Especially after someone else did it for huge "art" project in NY around 1985. Nothing came of it. No interest.
It's just like a flip card, except it stays still and YOU move. cute eh? One of my animation students made something similar where the "film" is on a large cylinder, you sit in the middle on an office chair and spin around. He called it the "Sick-O-Scope" I gave him an A.
aww man, talk about sour grapes! where's my Jack Daniels?
I wish I noticed this story earlier.
For all of you New Yorkers who rode the D train from Brooklyn into Manhattan in the late 70's and early 80's, this is old hat. I don't know when they pulled the plug on this, but between Dekalb Ave. and the Manhattan Bridge some artist had done exactly this along the abonded Myrtle Ave. stop. It depicted a 1950's style rocket ship taking off and landing.
I must have watched this a 1,000 times on way in to high school. Of course, this was art and not an ad.
About 10-15 years ago, in an abandoned train station in Brooklyn.It was not an ad though, just a short art project "movie". The station's columns acted as frame separators. I think it was "D/Q" line somewhere near downtown Brooklyn on the way to Manhatten...
;-)
Literaly prior art?
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
here in Boston a ton of them are painted up for various things.
I meant paint them in a way so that as they moved it animated like the images in the tunnel...
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
While they do manage to tag some of the most 'daring' locations, I don't imagine they'd have the patience to tag the hundreds of signs along the tunnel.
--
Power to the Peaceful
How long before taggers start doing animated grafiti, now that would be cool.
Just what New York needs... another reason to drive a car into the city.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
and his henchmen in
The White House
rob the United States of Amerika!!!
-Have a marijuana inspired weekend.
These ads are also being used on the new Athens (Attiko) Metro, and have been up for at least 4 months now. Coca Cola, the 2004 Olympics and a colonge ad have been spotted in several tunnels. They are about 7 seconds long and only are shown if the train is traveling a certain direction. Who knows what systems are useing these ads worldwide
No, I don't have anything planned for you, I promise...
I believe that elongated ads were first dreamed up by Ray Bradbury in Farenheit 451. You were only able to see them for what they were while traveling on the extremely fast mass transit. At least it sticks out in my mind that way- its been a long time since I read it.
If I overnight at the Ritz Carlton I'm a guest.
If I buy a jock-strap at Target, I'm a CUSTOMER.
Sheesh.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
I had this idea a couple of years ago. I'm glad someone is doing it. Cool.
I looked at my own bare ass the other day for the first time in months and to my suprise, an ad for Fruit of the Loom underwear had been tatooed there at some point. I guess there is really no limit to which these advertisers are willing to go.
... in the form of a large animated billboard, positioned right when you get off a bridge, and have a nice big ugly merge. It's probably not that big a deal when you're stuck in rushhour traffic and not moving, but in normal traffic it just *sucks* to have that extra little bit of distraction out of the corner of your eye. I can't wait until a family of nuns gets smeared all over the road by some guy in an SUV that is distracted by the local 7-11 big gulp prices, maybe then they'll turn that shit off.
Sometimes when you drive the groves in the pavement make different sounds and tones. You could do the same thing to the subway track so that the images would have a synched up audio "track"
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
we had those on bus stations. you could see thomas haas swing his tennis racket when you drove by. ads were placed for the tennis championship in düsseldorf/germany.
IAAL
Come on! The Hong Kong subway system is to die for. Fast, clean, convenient. There are stations everywhere, and they place you within walking distance of any destination (except maybe in the New Territories).
Back in the 1980s, an artist created an installation in the New York Subway called Masstransiscope which essentially turned the subway into an unrolled and oversized zoetrope.
a rocket scientist? Please . . .
So you're on the train, watching the Discovery channel's "Shark Week" animated subway ad and suddenly you have the urge to visit the concession stand and buy a soft drink and some popcorn because some dingleberry replaced a couple pictures on the wall.
crazy dynamite monkey
Ok, so it appears that they've basically hung a series of still images along the subway route. As you go zipping by, they blur together to form a continuous animated image. Same concept as a flipbook: draw a picture on a series of pages and flip them quickly so the images appear to be in motion. (yes, same way a film strip works, etc.)
Fine. But this should only work in one direction. Passengers riding from point A to point B will see the animation correctly. But a passenger traveling from B to A is going to get the animation in reverse as they will be passing the same pictures in reverse order.
I don't particularly want to see an animated feminine hygiene ad... but I really don't want to see an animated feminine hygiene ad in reverse.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Saw this as an 8-year-old on the Montreal Metro, installed as promotion for Expo '67. The ad was on the long stretch of subway tunnel between the then-busiest station (Berri-de-Montigney) and the station that served the Expo fairgrounds (Ile Ste. Helene).
If memory serves me, it was about 10 seconds long and displayed an animated character running to keep up with the train. Don't recall the product it was selling. Based on what I saw, I imagine it was done with strobe lights synched in some simple way to the train.
As with most things related to Expo '67, the ad lingered for a few years, fell into disrepair, and eventually vanished.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
Graffitti on these ads would be a pretty tough hack. . . you'd have to use storyboards, and possibly create a group of stencils, to do it. Not something the average tagger will be able to do. More like the old "changing the messages spectators create in the stadium" hack. Would require serious planning.
Manhattan to NewJersey
- Basic Service (On Tunnels with ads every 5 minutes) $1.50 (Add $0.99 for eyeshades)
- Premium Service (On Tunnels with no ads)$8.50
... and when any of them approach the population density of NYC, and travel back in time 100 years to when building gigantic tunnels underneath a city wasn't as hard (try digging anywhere in NYC now.. you'll hit millions of dollars in moving utilities alone) and maybe these places would have an equal transit system.
The best feature of the subway is not its coverage or frequency, but 24/7 service. I hate having to rush for the 1:41 to get back to Jersey hoping that I don't have to spend a night in NYP.
Well, if our transit systems got 4bil+10bil in aid, maybe it would happen..
NYC is 398km, 469 stations and runs 24/7/365
Thanks to MetroPlanet for the details.
Is there some method to make the picture flash at just the right point? Otherwise, you would just see a smear.
(something equivalent to the slits on the old rotoscopes)
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
..except when one car is rotated out into the shop and suddenly you're missing frames 22-30 of your ad. oops!
A series of frames would be tough. Better to tag one frame with a subliminal message, then watch the hijinks ensue.
Hmmm. That would make for an interesting experiment. Replace one frame of an ad with the word "thirsty", and see how many people head for a Coke machine as soon as they get off the train. Or see how many thugs get really nervous after getting the subliminal message "sharpened screwdriver".
Some evil genius could have a field day with this! I'd try it on the Pittsburgh subway myself, but nobody would see it. :-)
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It would have been nice had the article explained how the ads work instead of devoting the entire article to "what is an ad?" and "aren't these guys geniuses?"
The only transit systems in the world that make an OPERATING profit are in Japan. The construction is heavily subsidized by the gov't and then they are run privately. Too bad our politicians only believe that road and air transportation modes should be allowed to lose billions of dollars.
Thank you for noticing the Kodak product placement. Those of us with shares of Kodak (NASDAQ: EK) appreciate your endorsement. Sure, we're still losing money, but we expect Kodak to get to step 3 -- profit -- real soon.
As early as 1991, by my recollection, there has been frame-by-frame graffiti animation in NYC subway tunnels that uses the same process.
Specifically, on the D train from Brooklyn, into Manhattan, starting a couple of stops after the Avenue J stop, and going for one full stop.
Look out the right side of the train (w/r/t to the front). It's probably still there.
There has been a Disani add like this in the Subway (PATCO) for a while. It's pretty impressive and definately gets your attention. Basically its like a flipbook animation.
As it was already done in other places, in Argentina it was done last year. Here is a newspaper article about this (translation by Google.
It was an effect in Remy Shand's Rocksteady video.
-- he's not heavy, he's my sysadmin!
We had this in Montreal 25 years ago. Hardly a new idea. Steve Mitchell http://www.finditincanada.ca
There's already moving ads on the greek subway system (metro)for a few months now, and they seem to be based on the same technology. From the coa-cola ads i've seen until now, they dont look that good, and the flashing probably gives a headache to most people.
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I saw something similar a long time ago [as in a decade+] on Tomorrows World. It was simple animations for subways in Japan, just kids stuff. The frames were made of LEDs and basically, it sucked.
I still have an image in my mind of some little Japanese kid looking out the window and a simple flickering red and green cat, with a "What the fuck is this?" look on his face. Kinda summed up the whole article.
Google was fruitless though, which doesn't suprise me.
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!
I was sitting here, coding some stuff for a friend of mine, thinking about this desire the military has for the information overlays. You know, where things like opfor and escape routes are displayed over the field of vision, not to replace reality but augment it?
I started thinking about the right of a person to say, "hey, this is public transportation, I pay for it, I don't want it riddled with ads." And of course that would never happen because advertisers help (in whatever amount) to keep fares down and/or keep the transportation system at least partially subsidized. So imagine a future where HUDs are not exacly uncommon, but a pay service is available that -- through whatever mechanism (real-time recognition of, hardwired maps, whatever) -- is capable of nulling out advertisements. Instead of seeing a billboard you see trees. Instead of hearing an ad, you hear your favorite music, whatever.
Do we then find ourselves with anti-advertising laws designed to retain our eyes and ears? Will jamming be put into effect, rendering the providing company's economic model moot and thereby cause the destruction of such services? As absurd as it may seem, will corporations own enough of our mindshare (through media manipulation) and our representatives (through simple contributions) to actually cause public opinion to view users of such systems as "thieves"?
I know this sounds kind of far-fetched, but each one of the steps necessary to bring this to fruition is not only wholy plausible but in some cases already history.
Just a thought.
My
Limekiller
Don't knock it till you see it.
It's actually pretty cool.
Sure it's an ad for something, but that's not what's important, it's the effect of seeing a video out of the subway window.
I'd rather see a couple 10 second animations that i might catch a glimpse of during my commute over seeing the 1000s of big ugly flash and banner ads stuffed all over the internet.
Bradbury, et al., suggested using a material that was common years ago but may not be so common now - it was a type of reflector that showed a picture when viewed one way and another picture when viewed from a slightly different angle. You could flip back and forth by rotating the reflector. Their idea was that if you're going to have an animation museum, the museum itself should be animated. But since they were specifically aiming at kids, they set up the entry just for the kids.
What happened depended on how tall you were. If you were an adult, you saw these static cartoon adult characters, i.e., Goofey, Donald, etc. following you along as you walked down the hall to the exhibit. But if you were a kid, or you lowered your eyes to kid-height, what you saw were an animated Huey, Dewey and Louie running in and out of the cartoon adult's legs.
Little payoff? If a vandal managed something really cool and witty, their work would be on national news. Think of the famous MIT pranks, like putting a police car on top of their big dome. This could be on that level, provided enough thought was given to it. Of course, your average vandal doesn't have the brains, but ...
I remember having read about (~15 years ago!) an example of this (in Europe maybe)? Does anyone know when this was first done?
Not burst their bubble and all, but I believe during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal the Metro had these type of flipbook ads. Can anyone back me up on this because my memories are fuzzy.
I am about as anti-ad as you can get in the mainstream. I have picked up adbusters a few times, I complain ceaselessly about branding of stadiums, I HATE virtual ads in broadcasts, and I use mozilla to block pop ups.
I also hated elevator ads, until I worked in a highrise building. When you are bored out of your mind and you have nothing to do, ads can pass the time. I commute every day on the subway in Toronto and having ads on the tunnel walls would pass the time. Advertising is definately not a panacea, but in this case everybody wins. I don't see what there is to complain about.
Now as far as Microsoft funding UofWestern...;)
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
...Sub-culture?
What happens when trains sometimes get rerouted, wouldnt the adds then be running in reverse?
We've had these animated ads in the Philadelphia subway since the beginning of the summer. It works really well. It's like watching a TV commercial out your window as the train rolls by. It's one of the oldest moving picture technologies used in a new way.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
What would you consider them in the mean time? "Not worthy of your huge balls"? I don't need to argue the definition of a subway with you. You're just being an ass.
Boston has 3 subway lines (the underground LRT tunnel and underground bus do not count here).
Sure, the systems you mentioned are smaller, but there's like 25 million people in the area of NYC. Of course your system is going to be bigger. Of course you're going to have 4- and 6-track sections so the track can be maintained while local service still runs.
I'm surprised this made it to Slashdot just now. There have been animated ads in Santiago's metropolitan subway for some time already.
There was also a story in a local newspaper about a chilean inventor that proposed the idea to our subway, but that was ignored; after that, he traveled to the U.S. to propose the idea and, after a while of the appearance of animated ads in the subways of major U.S. cities, our subway decided to implement that too.
I dunno if anything of that article is true, but I would not surprised if that was the case; we chileans have a long tradition of copying ideas from other countries instead of building on our own.
That's part of why we're not a developed country yet... (now that was overboard...)
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
On a similar note, I recently bought a complete set of Popular Mechanics Do-it-Yourself encyclopedias (published in 1968), and one project that was detailed was a picture done in a similar manner, except instead of lenticular lens plastic being used, three pictures were used. Two of the pictures were cut into strips that were glued back-to-back and in order. Then a third picture was placed in the frame, and via grooves sawed in the top and bottom of the frame edge, the strips were placed perpendicular to the main picture. This basically allowed three different "views" in one picture frame as you looked at it from the left, the right, and "head-on". The project was described as using portraits: A left portrait, a right portrait, and a frontal face portrait.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I'd like to know some more about the technology behind this. It would seem that you couldn't just put up a bunch of images in line and expect them to form a movie. The images would streak together, as if a movie were run through a projector with no shutter or sprocket holes.
It might work if the illuminated panels behind the ads were designed to blink on and off quickly as the train ran by. They would, however, have to blink repeatedly, or else they would only target a small viewership on the train. Apparently they are backlit posters. What form of backlighting can fluctuate so quickly, and cover a poster sized area with even illumination?
This technology was used in 1998 in Berlin. Short films and commercials were shown on the tunnel walls. They used sensors to measure the speed of the subway and installed computer controlled projectors to make sure the clips ran at an even speed, independent of the speed of the train.
Article from 1998 (German)
Babelfish translation
Although all of us know how it works in concept, it isn't an obvious thing to come up with. Someone had to come up with the idea and do testing. I suspect they have to syncronize a flash behind each frame with the train so you don't just end up with a blur, etc. etc. etc.
*This* is what the patent system was invented for, not for use by people to protect their "I think I'll write a program to do X which is almost like everything else you've ever seen before".
Hmmm...seems there were cigerette ads in my novels back in the '70's.
I was in Tokyo earlier this year (late april/early may) and in one of the subways I saw something that sounds like a similar concept: a long stretch of LEDs programmed to keep the advert they were displaying (in four colors no less) in sync with the train window... So as we speed by the thing the ad (for Fujifilm iirc) was constant position outside the window... Pretty neat, really. (I don't remember where I was at the time, I want to say we were on our way to shinjuku).
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
There was animation in a D/Q train tunnel leading from Dekalb station into manhattan (right before the Bridge)
This was like 10 or so years ago!
I think it was actually drawn (spray painted?) as opposed to printed on...
...Amazing they were "unveiled" in Atlanta in 2001; saw one in Buenos Aires in dec 2000 for local deodorant brand "Axe", by a local ad agency.
Hi, I lived in NYC in 1984 and I seem to remember
this being tried then. Ah well, it's worth another
shot, gives you a reason to look out the window.
Better than catching a homeless person or a
alligator....
I don't know, I am never bored in a bus or a subway car. It's called a book and it works just fine.
BTW, the idea isn't that new, I remember reading about an art installation I think in Berlin a couple of years back who did exactly the same thing.
But I guess leave it to marketing to turn something interresting and good into something just bland.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Just came back from Athens, where this is up and running, in full-annoyance mode, showing really cheesy Coca-Cola ads. FWIW, I think this was either on Grammh 2 between Panepistimio and Omonoia or on Grammh 3 between Evaggelismos and Syntagma (or both?).
// zyqqh
video here
It's kinda neat actually. Almost like being in a giant flipbook.
- Kevintechnokev.com
Except these subliminal messages were determined countless years ago (see the first lawsuits regarding subliminal messages) because the brain simply discards the information. And, when you think about it, it makes sense. Take a billboard on the street. Walk by it. Now drive by it at 60mph. Now drive by it at 180mph. As you increase your speed, you approach having seen it for the equivilient of one frame of film. Do you think it has more impact, or less?
-bugg
This form of advertising also appeared in the Athens Metro subway in 1999 or 2000. To reply to some other post, the system must have speed/motion sensors because only the correct side lights up when your train approaches it, and also the motion picture appears to be speed-adjusted (if the train slows down, the ad self-adjusts).
Cheers, vyruss
Coca-cola has been running these kinds of ads in the Athens (Greece) Metro for a long time now. They're kind of creepy, look out the window and all of the sudden you see a bunch of kids enjoying Coke products where you expect to see black nothingness.
Now there is a new one in one of the subways, an ADIDAS ad, a man running faster then the subway *of course in ADIDAS shues)
...and I'm not talking about the USA. ;-)) you can see on the windows flashing pictures that advertise beverages (mostly Fanta or Coca Cola). :-)
In the Athens Subway (like Athens, _Greece_) during some parts of the routes (total routes: 3
The flashing pictures give you the impression of a movie played bu a projector on the wagon windows, but they're actually being projected from outside the wagon. The "frame rate" is OK, but the image "shakes" a bit, due to the "frames" not being aligned.
It's cool though. The first time I noticed it I didn't quite get what I had seen, how I had seen it, or whether I had seen anything at all
You see, it doesn't last long. Max 2 seconds.
This sort of advertising was done in Montreal in the '70s. A new twist to this ancient format would be getting away from the transparencies to networked screens, and having the display changed according to the predicted hourly ridership demographics, e.g., investment opportunities from 0530 to 0900, Macy's from 1000 to 1300, takee-outee from 1630 to 1830, etc.
I turn away when I see them. (Ew... Advertisements anywhere, it's awful and ugly as hell).
BTW, in the very-very new lines 2 & 3 of Athens Metro, there was initially no advertising *at all*. But now, they start to put up posters everywhere, for an added revenue most probably. I very much liked everything clean as it was, and with the historic background of Athens our new underground was very enjoyable - a lot of the stations were in essence small public museums.
BTW2, I like London's underground with all its ads, because most of them have some value; they are about theatre, music, books. But, granted, most of the ads about commercial products just plain suck.
Relevant links:
Guess this guy doesn't live in the U.S. Raise your hand if you're from a major U.S. city that doesn't have a subway system. It's called urban sprawl, folks -- when you build horizontally instead of vertically, subways become prohibitively expensive (in the short run, which is all that matters to those who have the power to build them).
My deviantArt site
It's a type of transparent screen filters with properties like microscopic vertical blinds. When affixed to the front of any backlit image, the filter restricts the viewing angle to a few degrees. From any other angle than almost perpendicular, the screen appears completely dark. The moving subway ads have the same type of screen filters attached, which means that the frame only becomes visible when it is nearly perpendicular to the train window, and it rapidly flickers out of sight as you move past it.
The persistance of vision means the eye is tricked into seeing these brief glimpses of each frame as a continous motion picture sequence, although the blank inter-frame interval is presumably much longer than that of normal television, and the framerate is presumably lower.
Technology aside, ads do get ever more obnoxious and intrusive, on the net and off the net. Other posts in this thread have briefly touched on future ad-blanking augmented reality applications, and I believe there will be a market for such things as we move ever closer to the nightmare situation of animated, personalized, intrusive ads everywhere, as depicted beautifully in Minority Report.
One day every inner-city billboard will be plastered with animated ads, as the cost of printing flexible, brught polymer displays will plummet in the next decade.
FYI, these kind of ads have been running on the red (M2) Metro line in Budapest, Hungary for many months now - since at least October 2001 when I moved there. Kinda cool, but they look really low res in action.
Milano's subway has had them for at least 6 months.
They look like movies from the beginning of the century, just outside the subways' windows.
Cute, and in the long run boring.
On the plus side, there's no audio to accompany them (which instead happens in some stations). It easier to look somewhere else than not to listen.