Shanghai Metro: 9 Million Eyes For Your Brand

Shanghai’s Metro has received a stream of unfavorable publicity over the last months. On December 22, two trains collided. Shanghai’s artery, Line 8, still can’t handle the hordes of passengers. Line 2′s new station, Zhangjiang, proved poorly designed and equally incapable of handling rush-hour crowds. Despite all this, Shanghai’s Metro is proving to be a lucrative advertising space.

Presently, 4.3 million people will use Shanghai’s Metro everyday. Not to mention all the others who utilize a station’s underground passages as an alternative to crossing big streets. That number is predicted to jump to 9 million a day by 2013, trumping all other of the world’s metro systems. That means a lot of potential eyes for ads and in-train TVs.

Compared to other outdoor advertising medias, Metro TV advertising reaches more youth and high-income groups. It is more suitable for running advertising for high-end products and products geared towards Chinese youth. In addition to the value of the ads themselves, they also work well as a corollary to television, magazine, and online advertising. Nearly 50% of passengers who see subway ads will associate them with a brand’s television commercials.

Outdoor advertising giant, JCDecaux, and subway systems media operator Digital Media Group (DMG) have come to dominate Shanghai’s subterranean world of advertising. And their prices are continually on the rise.

For some, the price tag is worth it. Several brands have had successes with subway campaigns. A subway ad campaign by local rice-wine producers, Shanghai’s Home, was met with approval amongst commuters. Many netizens, like Xiong, praised the campaign on their blogs and various BBS.

Other campaigns have met with much less approval. Smack in one of Shanghai’s busiest subway hubs, Nanjing Xi Lu, Volkswagen had an ad for its Polo stating: “Some people wait at the stuffy subway station while some drive Polo Jinqu on whatever roads they want.” Passengers immediately cried foul. A netizen named “Dongbeiren in Shanghai” protested this ad saying, “It is an insult to metro passengers. This advertisement should be banned and Polo must apologize to us.” Many other angered netizens echoed his sentiments.

The sheer volume of people that rely on Shanghai’s metro makes it a prime location to engage consumers. Yet to capture someone’s attention when their mind is on getting from A to B will require creative approaches. Last year Rand Han highlighted one such campaign on his blog, Little Red Book.